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Pallas Athene
Pallas Athene EP
(independent) - 2019
Michael Panontin
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Pallas Athene is the stage name for Breanna Johnston. The Toronto-based musician might seem like a recent arrival on the scene, but as Johnston notes in her bio she had spent "nearly a decade playing in various rock and folk bands". Until 2014, that is, when she somewhat cryptically reveals that she "injured her hands in a construction mishap and had to take an extended break from guitar in order to heal, a hiatus which led to an adventure in making electronic music".
Like a certain other musician way back in the mid-seventies, Johnston's misfortune proved to be the music world's gain. Her first stab at electronica came that very same year with the release of a pair of internet-only tracks, 'Neptune's Dream' and 'Lionheart', both hushed, ethereal affairs that recall - in spirit if not entirely in sound - Brian Eno's own convalescent musical awakening in a hospital bed in 1975. Following that was 2016's 'What I Want', a perkier turn down more mainstream early-eighties avenues.
On Pallas Athene, her first release proper, Johnston wades into the deeper, murkier waters of introspection. The EP opens with the ominously titled 'Through Hell', an ultra-stark pairing of minimal piano and voice that explores "the stages of grief, self-acceptance and the healing process that follows psychological trauma". From there, things get more electronic, and much more interesting. The sombre 'Communion ft. Dollarstore Keyboard' is a bewitching instrumental, while 'Saturn's Return', easily the best of the five tracks here, is a densely packed ride through Homogenic-era electronics (which to Bjork fans is about as high a compliment as one could pay, no?).
Though it falls somewhat short of groundbreaking, Pallas Athene is certainly worth checking out.
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Pallas Athene
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