Pneumania
pneu•ma•nia
n(y)o͞oˈˈmānēə/
noun

1. a mental condition induced by cultural or societal environments and marked by an inflated sense of pride, sycophantic behavior, and common narcissism
“abandoning his principles, his peers, and consumed by pneumania, he believed his work to be of great importance.”

2. an obsession with newness
“each new device introduced to the market inspires greater pneumania.”

Pneumania is the first full-length album by E L O N, the latest project from California vocalist and electronic musician Elon Katz. Across six tracks, Pneumania unfolds psychedelic interpretations of beat-centric electronic music, referencing electro, dub techno, and illbient while searching for new ground. The album title, Pneumania, derives from “pneumonia” and “pneumatic,” relating to both respiratory illness and air or gas under pressure, while phonetically pointing toward a literal ‘New Mania.’ The word is the artist’s attempt to characterize an accumulative paradigm shift experienced within the past decade: a rampant increase of precarity and austerity, an acceleration of avarice, and a trend toward extreme political schism.

Elon Katz has worked in various modalities since 2008, maintaining an active culture of projects including White Car, Streetwalker (in collaboration with Beau Wanzer), and a slew of other aliases, preferring creative flexibility over consistent branding. Pneumania is the follow-up to the 2016 E L O N EP, Concupiscence, on MIND Records, and the 2017 mix of original material for Grey Matter Archives curated by Japanese artist CVN. His instrumental work includes the mid-2000s IDM project Aguirre, released by NNA Tapes in 2010; the first Elon Katz solo release, The Pylori Program, a minimal ambient work created with an E-MU modular synthesizer and E-5000 sampler; and a 2011 performance with artist Kyle Evans using his custom-built ‘Electronically Modified Didgeridoo’, in which Katz accompanied the instrument with machine rhythms and electronics. Katz operates the music project and label Zero Grow from his home studio in Los Angeles, where he is currently working on a follow-up to his 2016 album The Human Pet.

Pneumania, mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, will be released in June by San Francisco label Left Hand Path in digital and vinyl formats featuring ‘globalist-agitprop’ artwork from Oakland-based designer and musician Daniel Letson (aka DJML).