LX8, the musical project of French-British songwriter, artist, author and designer Henry Chebaane, has released an afro house remix of the track Ghosts of Sound, which will form part of an upcoming double LP linked to his graphic novel series The Panharmonion Chronicles (www.panharmonion.com).
The graphic novel Ghosts of Sound, which is due for release in winter 2025, is volume two in The Panharmonion Chronicles series, following Times of London, which came out in 2023.
The story follows DJ and EDM producer Alex Campbell, who uses electronic music to aid a 19th-century community against an imperial threat, blending elements of science fiction, horror, and alternative history.
909originals caught up with him to discuss the new track, and the inspiration behind his The Panharmonion Chronicles series.
How would you describe the new single, Ghosts of Sound, and what is the story behind it?
Ghosts of Sound was the first song I ever wrote. The words and melody came to me while I was writing my first graphic novel The Panharmonion Chronicles: Times of London, some five years ago.
The novel is about a multicultural dance music producer who tries to cope with grief and past trauma, while also fighting tyrannical forces hellbent on destroying her and our society.
I released the first version of this song three years ago as a personal experiment in multimedia storytelling. I wanted to test how music can be part of a novel and vice-versa. Which is why, unusually for a dance track, there is as much emphasis on the lyrics as on the music itself.
Ghosts of Sound is a song about hope, love and unity – three values that humanity seem to be increasingly lacking these days.
This song is like a call to people to come together at sunset on the dance floor, put aside their differences, remember those who have passed before us and celebrate the past, present and future in a life-affirming dance session. This premise will become even clearer for readers of the novel.
As this epic story keeps on developing, I wanted this progression to be reflected in the music as well. So, this new single is an Afro House remix where piano and synths collaborate with African djembe drums and backing vocals. I hope that some people will find it uplifting. My intention is not to create a “hit” but rather like my books, to produce a layered piece of storytelling that matures slowly and grows on the audience with each session.
What inspired the creation of The Panharmonion Chronicles and its fusion with dance music under the LX8 project?
The Panharmonion Chronicles multimedia universe and its dance music extension LX8 (Life x Infinity) are very personal projects that I wish to eventually expand globally to include other producers, DJs and performers as well as visual artists from around the world.
Ultimately, I want all this to be able to fund a charitable platform to sponsor ecology, literacy and education in art and science, across the world, using dance music as the ultimate democratic leveller.
For the genesis of this project, we would have to go back in time to 1988. I arrived in London from Paris as a penny-less young lad who took a job cleaning kitchens. I had big dreams and little means. During my days off I wandered around London and discovered the sonic wonders of acid-house music.
I also found a whole community united by the simple desire to suspend time, shrug off worries, and dance together the night away. Without phones or social media, and that was fresh! Until the tabloid hysteria arrived, seeking to ban raves with their lurid headlines and sensational claims. This made me reflect about how throughout history, various religious and political institutions have been seeking to control the human mind and body, banning books, music and dancing.
Fast forward a few decades – now as a successful international designer, I’ve been able to travel the world and spend time in Canada, particularly in Toronto and Montreal. The two cities are relatively close geographically but are culturally two worlds apart. I was intrigued enough by this difference to start researching the history of the region and what I found was a complex web of colonial conflicts over centuries juxtaposing the actions of Britain, France and the USA, which used and abused immigrants and indigenous people in various ways.
So, I started writing a novel based on these observations, when separately, I was also working for a developer on the conversion of several 19th century houses in Camden, London. My idea was to create a boutique hotel based on an alternative history of London and Scotland (it’s located in Argyle Square, King’s Cross). While we were digging the basement, several uncanny events happened. On one such occasion, I made a strange discovery: a golden metal object buried in the clay, that looked like some kind of alien ‘musical tuning fork’!
I could not find any explanation or references for this artefact in the British Library. So, I decided to create my own origin story and connected the object to a new plot in my novels, which became a time-travel mystery thriller interwoven with Sci-Fi and Horror elements, involving sound and music.
Then, because Alex, the main protagonist of these novels is a music composer, I thought it would be interesting to write songs and produce music related to The Panharmonion Chronicles, under the same alias that she uses in the story: LX8 (Life x Eternity). It’s a symbolic name intended to be a collective umbrella for a community of like-minded people who want to do good in the world, through art and music. Somehow, this also brings her story into our reality and gives it some sort of agency to interact with our world and its people.
On some level, this work is also my modest token of gratitude, to celebrate all the men and women past, present and future who work hard producing and playing music for others to enjoy.
The outsiders’ perception is that DJs and music producers live a carefree fantasy life filled with hedonism…when in reality, like all art forms, it is hard work (most of the time). These are people with pains, desires and frustrations like everybody else and deserve the same respect as any other professionals. I hope that this story makes an oblique, modest but real contribution towards this recognition.
Your music has been described as a ‘sonic quest into human consciousness and the nature of reality’ – how is this reflected in your art?
Dancing and listening to music are physical activities, but they can also have important psychological, even therapeutic dimensions – some might say even to a quasi-mystical level. And why not? If we consider the extensive use of shamanic drums and chants across all regions of the world throughout recorded history, we can see that using music to access higher spiritual dimensions has been around forever.
Like many people, I find everyday life perplexing, most of the time…but art and science are two complementary processes that help me make sense of it all. So, I’m an avid reader of quantum physics to try to understand more about the nature of time and reality at their most fundamental level. What does it mean for humans to be ‘here’ and ‘now’? How do we use sounds, lights, shapes, colours and textures to manifest ideas and emotions?
That’s what fascinates me with music: its ability to transport us through time and space. If you think about it for a minute, music is like a book, it’s a process of encoding bits of thoughts into information that can be shared between people and turned into real, tangible actions: dancing, clapping, tapping, humming…All emotions, which means energy in motion. The potential to move ourselves and the world with it!
The title of my novels and music work is made of two parts. First, “The Panharmonion”, which I’ve imagined to be a harmonic frequency that contains the fundamental “code” of our reality. This frequency might be accessible, under rare circumstances, to only a few humans across millennia. But then, such individuals could share this code, subliminally and unconsciously through their music, which eventually might be able to unite people of Earth, through the communal act of dancing together…if no dark forces try to stop us.
“Chronicles” is from the Greek word “Khronika”. It usually refers to the record of past events, real or imagined. As stories are usually produced by “cause” and “effect”. I’ve been wondering whether there could be circumstances where causality can be reversed. As in, “Does our consciousness create music from scratch or is music already there, hidden within the physics of our universe and waiting to be uncovered by our consciousness?”
It’s a complex question but fascinating on a creative and philosophical level. The Panharmonion Chronicles is an attempt at exploring all this.
How do you approach developing a concept album tied to a graphic novel series? Where do you begin?
All creative process must begin with a single step. One word, one sketch, one keystroke at a time. There is no fundamental right or wrong way to tell a story, but there are paths that are more efficient than others. I’ve had many false starts looking for a causal loop that could provide the story concept with a self-fuelling engine for growth.
I guess the analogy of a tree is as good as any. You need to have many roots to feed a strong trunk from which many branches can then develop into multiple directions, while staying linked together cohesively. In other words, select one single solid concept and everything else will grow from it.
How do you see The Panharmonion Chronicles universe continuing to evolve with each new chapter?
Vol. 1: Times of London focuses on the entanglement between 1880 and 2024 between two London cities, in England and Ontario. The characters are from Canada, Britain, USA, India, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and Ghana. The main protagonist, Alex Campbell, moves from Toronto to England due to personal circumstances. Once in London, she finds much inspiration for new music but also discovers something truly terrifying, buried deep beneath the surface of both her mind and the streets of King’s Cross.
Vol. 2: Ghosts of Sound takes place mostly in Nova Scotia and Scotland, in a steampunk alternative history of 1880-1881. The cast is mostly Scottish, Irish, English, French, American, African and Berber.
This speculative fiction posits that during the American civil war, the state of Ohio and adjacent territories, break away from the USA, under the leadership of an ultra-religious fascist movement and renames itself Varangia. It then invades South-Eastern Canada with ambitions across the Atlantic. This is all purely fictional…right?
Vol. 3 – as yet untitled – will see Alex returning to our present era, which has now changed quite dramatically, though maybe not all that surprisingly. She will have some more horrifying discoveries to deal with, and music will be a powerful tool to help her through this.
Ghosts of Sound is a time-travelling tale which has parallels with contemporary social issues – are you positioning the work as a commentary on today’s world?
The commentary emerged by itself, from the story. I did not start writing fiction with any particular message in mind. I just care deeply about the continuous destruction of our environment, the pain inflicted on animals and other people, the wanton resource extraction and all the injustices inflicted on fellow humans under the guise of doctrines, superstitions and morality. So, I guess by writing from the heart all these issues had to come out by themselves.
On this note, this is also why I read and watch a fair amount of science fiction – It is often a useful vehicle to reflect on real world problems under the guise of speculative stories.
You’ve cited John Carpenter as an inspiration. What about his work particularly inspired you?
I find him inspiring as a multimedia artist. Besides directing seminal horror movies like The Thing, The Fog and Halloween using relatively small budgets, he has made some interesting use of minimalist lighting and photography to let a mood creep into the mind of the audience.
He also produces comics with his wife and has been making synthesiser music for a long time, to score his films.
In what ways do you see The Panharmonion Chronicles evolving into other channels – such as gaming, VR, or live performance?
In future, through my production studio Supanova Media, I want to collaborate with other professional artists and producers to develop the multiple strands of this fictional world, using as many media as possible, including games, animation, TV series, feature films and live performances.
As I said earlier, I would like The Panharmonion Chronicles to eventually be able to fund a charitable platform with outposts across the world, driven by local artists.
It would be brilliant to get to the point of having simultaneous live performances in different countries with local casts. A multimedia stage production, something along the lines of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds but with dance choreography, techno-house music and steampunk aesthetics.
What would you say to other creators looking to build a multimedia universe around their music — what’s the key to making it cohesive?
Everyone will have their own take on this, but I would advise to simply be authentic to what you really want to do and believe in yourself.
Choose something that you enjoy doing besides the music but find a common thread that relates to it, so that your audience have opportunities to explore and experience the adjacent spaces of your musical output.
If you think of music as just another way to manifest and experience the vibrations of waves and particles that make our universe, then the path to extend individual artistic practices through other media becomes clearer. Some DJs and producers are already doing this with audio-visual installations like the spectacular light shows of Eric Prydz and Excision, but it does not have to be so large or expensive.
Personally, I like the low-budget, indie path to multimedia development. It’s why I write, direct, and produce my own music videos. Not only is it much cheaper but I also get to learn new skills all the time. Also, if you are into graphic design, you can test ideas in 2D and 3D printing without committing to minimum quantities.
It is important for everyone to remember that there is no such thing as failure. Every action you take is an experiment that provides you with insights and knowledge, enabling you to progress further. So go for it!
What is the timeline for your future releases, and what is set to follow Ghosts of Sound?
I have several new songs and tunes in my head, simmering away within The Panharmonion Chronicles lore. I will get to them, once the next book is out this winter.
For now, Ghosts of Sound has such a universal message that I would like to increase its reach by expanding the range of remixes with other styles of electronic music… from Chicago acid house to euphoric trance!
I will do some of it myself, but if there are any other producers out there who want to join in for collabs, I’d be delighted. The more we work together, the more we can help unite the people of Earth through music and dance. After all, The Panharmonion is within everyone and for all who want to be part of it.
Thanks to LX8 for chatting to us. Learn more about The Panharmonion Chronicles here and here.
Check out the top tracks that the 909originals team has recently discovered through Musosoup here. To feature your music on 909originals, click here. 🙂
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