Alex Penney (pendamental)

Alex Penney is a music producer, DJ, and spatial sound artist from BC. His affinity for interesting sounds and immersive environments has led to an intimate relationship with the 4D Sound system at Lobe Studio. Drawing inspiration from funky beats, earthy textures, and warping reality, Penney's work is simultaneously rooted and spacey, blurring the lines between music and environment, invoking reflection and immersion while always returning to something you can nod your head to.

In addition to running Lobe, Penney is a senior engineer at Monarch Studios where he’s spent a decade recording, mixing, and producing records. He also DJs and releases music under the name pendamental, has created five full-length spatial sound works for both Lobe and MONOM, produced many collaborative interactive art installations (including four for Bass Coast Festival), volunteered for many different organizations, and obtained bachelors degrees in both Physics and Philosophy from the University of Calgary. His unique background set the course for an interdisciplinary approach to art and music, and informs his 'cross-pollination' creative approach today. He is continually seeking new forms of expression and immersion through sound.

Everything done must be fun.

pendamental.com

Are You Moving?

A composition that takes motion as its subject, this piece explores place and position by unsettling the listener’s perspective: be it physically or perceptually. 

“Are You Moving?” can be heard as an omniscient narrative that suggests a process of transformation; a journey that is motivated by passage between the diverse and populated soundscapes of one’s inner and outer worlds.

BEFORE THE GARDEN

A music & soundscape & psychedelic journey. Original spatial composition punctuated by samples & philosophy. Originally created for Bass Coast Festival 2023.

Fun and musical and easy to get immersed in.

The End of the Beginning

A philosophical exploration of what happens at the interface between life and death, through music, spoken word, soundscape, and mind-bending usage of 4DSOUND.

This piece was originally created for MONOM Studio during a residency there in 2024 and exhausted my life force in expressing these ideas.

The tone is uncertain and uncomfortable at times - the journey is thought-provoking and dark at times - but we’re all in it together, and the goal is to address these deep places in a safe environment, with some levity and music to keep us grounded, returning to an uplifting space to take us out. Questions are asked, and whether they’re answered or not is an individual experience.

Original music visits the lands of trip-hop, drum and bass, breakbeats, soulful piano… Words and philosophies come from myself and my crew… Soundscapes come from my travels and from the alien world of digital spatial sound.

I think it’s pretty dope myself, and I don’t say that often…

ap

4Days in SOUND

An extended, spatialized journey of the 2022 album “Two days in Time”. Mixed in the format that it was originally created for.

Organic Downtempo, Thoughtful Hiphop, Soulful House, Uplifting Breaks, Grooving Bass - A musical collage of powerfully produced and skillfully mixed electronic music, interspersed with studio jams which bring you right back to the time and place it was recorded, and the group of friend with whom it was made.