For years, Pachyman, the moniker of Puerto Rico-born, LA-based artist Pachy García, has been synonymous with meticulous dub reggae, channeling the legacy of icons like King Tubby and The Scientist through analogue warmth and bass-heavy meditations. But with Another Place, his fifth album and most expansive to date, García steps out of the echo chamber.
Leaning into experimental instincts and personal introspection, he crafts a genre-hopping body of work that bridges dub’s hypnotic roots with everything from post-punk to vaporwave. In this interview, Pachyman opens up about his creative evolution, embracing spontaneity, and how building a new sonic world meant confronting his own.
Hello Pachy. Thanks for taking the time, and congratulations on your upcoming album Another Place. How does it feel knowing the album is almost out in the world?
I’m excited for it to be out. It’s different from my prior work. So far, it’s gotten some great feedback on the tunes.
The record marks a shift in your sound. Was there a particular moment that pushed you to break out of that ‘formalist dub purist mindset’?
The mindset has always been there. I started the project six years ago and I’m already five albums deep. It was just a matter of time for it to start making my departure little by little. I just needed to work hard on other tunes so I could come in with a solid catalogue that felt proper. I try to work on different styles and ideas, so it was just a matter of finding the best ones that fit.
You've described this album as a more personal and vulnerable journey. Can you elaborate on that a little more for us?
Some of the songs are darker and more of a reaction to the current times we are living in. Being on the road alone a lot takes a toll, and I started feeling a little jaded and disconnected from my prior work. I wrote a lot of these songs in a fragile state emotionally and artistically.
I had my first panic attack all alone during a summer tour in Europe, halfway through the writing and recording of this album. I was putting too much pressure on myself to deliver on stage every night and I just broke. It made me rethinking what I was doing. I made some decisions, took a step back, and worked on myself — but I still had a record to finish. I wanted to get some new music out into the world and move on.
I had my first panic attack all alone during a summer tour in Europe, halfway through the writing and recording of this album. I was putting too much pressure on myself to deliver on stage every night and I just broke. It made me rethinking what I was doing. I made some decisions, took a step back, and worked on myself — but I still had a record to finish. I wanted to get some new music out into the world and move on.
There’s a lot of sonic diversity across the record. How do you balance a wide range of influences without losing your dub foundation?
All of the rhythmic parts of the records have the same idea in mind; kinda bouncy or dancy, some steppers drums with a strong backbeat. Maybe it’s the percussion that carries the signature patterns that I tend to create. If it’s something completely different from what I normally do, I might throw some big reverb hits or delay hits on the snare for that signature sound.
Sometimes you just have to lose the whole dub foundation all together to achieve the right sound for a song and just hope that it works in the context of the record. I’m a firm believer that not everything has to be a dub remix, but the stuff that I work on constantly seems like it could have some dub flare.
Sometimes you just have to lose the whole dub foundation all together to achieve the right sound for a song and just hope that it works in the context of the record. I’m a firm believer that not everything has to be a dub remix, but the stuff that I work on constantly seems like it could have some dub flare.
You mention artists like William Onyeabor, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and ESG as inspirations. Were there any unexpected influences that crept into Another Place?
There’s a proggy jazz fusion interlude moment called Strikes Back! that seems kinda left field on the record. There is a moment of post-punk that has a really heavy dub outro called False Moves. It’s my favourite one on the record. I’ve been a big fan of that Lifetones record that came out in the mid 70s. I was also a huge fan of his other band, This Heat, and I think those two influences made it into that song. There is a bit of soul-jazz that also made it in with Take Me to Dance. I think this record is very all over the place. Listening to it all the way through is the journey.
False Moves channels post-punk and was inspired in part by global events like the genocide in Gaza. How do you navigate expressing political or emotional turmoil through largely instrumental music?
I think we all react to world events and politics in different ways. Luckily, I have music as an outlet. My way of reacting to things might channel itself through my music in different ways, wether its trying to achieve an escapist utopian mood as a healing force or some sort of reactionary dark piece. Anything in between is also welcome. I never try to censor my feelings, but I write the way I do because of who I am. I can’t help but react the way I do in my music.
This is your fifth album, but your first where it feels like the debts to dub legends are ‘paid off.’ How does it feel to step out from under those shadows and claim your own sound?
It’s liberating. I do struggle with the feeling of not wanting to alienate the people that have been a part of my journey because of how dub-heavy it used to be, but that’s also part of the Pachyman journey — listening to new things. I enjoy making the stuff I make regardless of who’s listening, and I think it’s more fun as a listener to be a part of the journey of an artist that you like and trust. There’s so much that is yet to be discovered beyond the sound that I’m known for, you just have to come along for the ride.
Coming from a background of playing reggae and experimental rock in Puerto Rico, and later noise-pop in LA, do you feel your genre-jumping past helped refine your sound today?
Absolutely! All the music that I’ve been a part of has shaped my sound and I. Being a part of different music scenes gave me an insight on what I love to hear and create. It helped me understand how to stylise a sound and make records in the mindset of creating a ‘vibe’ or a feeling. All the genres and bands that I was a part of after growing up playing reggae added so much to my musical palette; it helped me sharpen different skills that I’ve been wanting to use in this project, and little by little, I kept adding them to my music.
You’ve said dub and post-punk share a “working class, anti-establishment DNA.” How do you keep that spirit alive in your music today?
I constantly work on music and I still have a day job and I tour my ass off. I’m not trying to be anti-establishment or working class in my music, I just live a life of constant work and I have certain ideas about stuff. I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone. Music that comes genuinely out of an artist will bring traces of themselves into the work. Keeping that spirit alive comes down to doing the work and pushing towards a better, more positive future.
You incorporate styles like vaporwave, chillwave, soul-jazz — genres often tied to nostalgia or digital culture. How do you recontextualise those moods in a more analogue, dub-oriented space?
Using the backbone of drums and bass; certain rhythms being hashed out and laying those other harmonic layers on top of them without trying to stick them in there or forcing them to work. As I said before, sometimes these ideas work and sometimes they don’t, and it takes trying out a lot of different ones.
I figured out that you can work on some ‘Lovers-Rock’ sounding stuff and get really creative in the harmonic side and lay a bunch of synths on them and get away with a lot. I record a lot with vintage ribbon mics in minimal settings, so working those ideas treating it like it was a live band in a room yields a lot of great results.
I figured out that you can work on some ‘Lovers-Rock’ sounding stuff and get really creative in the harmonic side and lay a bunch of synths on them and get away with a lot. I record a lot with vintage ribbon mics in minimal settings, so working those ideas treating it like it was a live band in a room yields a lot of great results.
You’ve been touring a lot already this year, and have a European run on the horizon. Do you have any rituals or routines before hitting the stage, especially when you're far from home?
Not really. Sometimes I like to take a shot, sometimes I like to be left alone, sometimes I like to hang out until showtime. I do a small vocal warmup, nothing too crazy. I try to see the band before if possible as well.
And lastly, if Another Place is a world of its own, what kind of place is it and who lives there?
Anyone with a sense of openness. It’s a safe space, no creeps allowed!
