Today Panchiko, the English band who thought their hope for success dissipated 30 years ago, release their eagerly-anticipated album Ginkgo, via Nettwerk. This precedes their biggest North American tour to date with bills at Brooklyn Paramount, Hollywood Palladium, The Fillmore, & more, with opening acts Model/Actriz, Untitled (Halo), Tanukichan, and more, all listed below. Listen to Ginkgo here.
As 90s kids in the city of Nottingham, Panchiko played shows to nearly empty rooms and eventually set aside the hope of becoming full-time musicians to pursue other careers. That was true until 2020, after discovering that an internet user found Panchiko’s discarded 2000 demo CD, D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L, in a Nottingham charity shop, posted it to 4chan in 2016, and effectively made their long let-go-of dreams imperative to pursue. With Ginkgo, Panchiko rediscovers and expands upon its beloved sound. The original rawness and fine grit of the demo CD remain but with an even more varied palette.
New places, a new generation of listeners, a whole new life — the shock of their circumstances often leads Panchiko to reflect on the youth they’ve lost since they recorded their high school demo. “We had to delete ‘My Mortgage Repayments Are Going Up,’” laughs Wright, offering a sarcastic song title. And while they decidedly did not record an album about the tedium of adult living, they did make a record that truthfully reflects their grounded station in life.
Today's focus track is "Chapel of Salt," a masterclass in tension, teasing vocal melodies that are airlifted to 10,000 feet in the air by a eager, gossiping guitar lines; they want to tell you what's coming next. The secret they don't keep for very long is a leap out of the airplane over an infinite horizon. It's an explosion of heavy, swimming, nu-metal wall of guitar, once again buoying the melody that intices you to use your own lungs to back up the band.
“Obsolescence, greatest lessons/ You can’t afford to miss/Don’t go quietly in the night see/You’re too good for this,” sings Vocalist and guitarist Owain Davies. "Chapel of Salt" sits in a gleaming glass case of the band's gravelly wisdom, scratching the shelves on which its displayed. Watch "Chapel of Salt" here. “Chapel of Salt is a song about the things we all deal with on a day-to-day basis, such as; space stations and body augmentation. If you’re worried about paying your interstellar corporation tax (who isn’t?) this song is a relatable slice of 90’s fun,” says Panchiko.
Of the album, we've already seen the Thom Yorke-coded "Mac's Omelette," "Honeycomb," which is lush with 1970s pop-rock of ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky," the moody, Rage Against The Machine-esque hip-hop flow of "Shandy in the Graveyard" ft. New York rapper billy woods, and the aching, soft-edged melody of Davies' falsetto on title track "Ginkgo." Today's "Chapel of Salt" It's like Guster’s Keep It Together run through a slew of distortion pedals. Over the past year, they've reached 118M streams on Spotify alone, with their following on the platform growing by 172k in the same amount of time; they've sold out major venues in NYC (Brooklyn Steel), Los Angeles (The Novo), DC (9:30 Club), and so many more – doubling the size of venue they play in the span of two years – with a major festival appearance at Levitation, and the Pitchfork London/Paris festivals this fall. The band just wrapped their sold-out UK/EU tour and will kick off their headline US tour on May 28, 2025. Routing below.
Panchiko — now composed of original members Andy Wright (keyboardist and producer) and Owain Davies (vocalist and guitarist), alongside new members guitarist Robert Harris, bassist Shaun Ferreday, and drummer John Schofield — pursued their new path with vigor. Upon discovering their virality in 2020, they toured the world and wrote, recorded, and released their first album in 20+ years, 2023’s Failed At Maths. But after the thrill of the whirlwind came a new question. What comes next when your dreams come true? The answer is Gingko, a 13-track project that finds the band making some of their most introspective, cinematic, and moving music yet.
Listen to Ginkgo, out now via NETTWERK, here.
TRACKLIST
1. Ginkgo
2. Shandy in the Graveyard
3. Honeycomb
4. Shelled and Cooked
5. Chapel of Salt
6. Lifestyle Trainers
7. Vinegar
8. Mac's Omelette
9. Subtitles
10. Formula
11. Rise & Fall
12. Innocent
PANCHIKO LIVE 2025
EU/UK
4/5 - Paris, France @ Petit Bain
11/4 - Pitchfork Paris
11/8 - Pitchfork London
US
5/28 - Boston, MA @ Big Night Live
5/29 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount
5/30 - Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
5/31 - Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
6/2 - Cleveland, OH @ Globe Iron
6/3 - Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
6/4 - Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
6/5 - Louisville, KY @ Mercury Ballroom
6/7 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
6/8 - Omaha, NE @ The Slowdown
6/10 - Denver, CO @ Summit Music Hall
6/12 - Phoenix, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
6/13 - San Diego, CA @ SOMA
6/14 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
6/16 - Oakland, CA @ Fox Theatre
6/19 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
6/20 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
6/21 - Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall
6/23 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Grand at the Complex
6/24 - Las Vegas, NV @ Portal at Area15
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