Meet Panoram, the enigmatic synth savant reshaping the IDM landscape with his genre-defying compositions. Known offstage as Raffaele Martirani and based in Rome, Panoram has captivated a global audience with his off-kilter tracks, including his latest release, “What It Means,” on the Running Back label. With over a million streams and praise from tastemakers like Pitchfork, The Vinyl Factory, and Boiler Room, his work has earned him spots alongside Kraftwerk and Gold Panda at Sónar Festival and even a nod from Thom Yorke, who included Panoram in a curated Sonos playlist. As a long-standing member of Amen Dunes, Martirani has toured iconic stages across Europe and the U.S., while his Panoram alias continues to intrigue with releases on Firecracker, Running Back, and his own Wandering Eye label. From abstract pop to cyborg funk, his eclectic sound resists categorization, appealing to fans of IDM pioneers like Aphex Twin and the atmospheric synthwave of Vangelis.
Stream ‘What It Means’ while you read our interview with Panoram below.
Set the tone for us. Why the arts?
They helped me cope during times of mental or emotional distress.
Which comes first when you’re producing – the sound or the idea?
Ideas are just the excuse to start creating. I never manage to materialise my ideas but the point is to spend time trying until something is revealed. I used to think of making music as something similar to sculpture but now I see it more as similar to nature photography. I wait for something to pass by and then I try to find an interesting way to photograph it.
Does your material feature any collaborations?
I prefer to work on my own .I have an ongoing collaboration with an American songwriter called Damon McMahon. I worked with him for the past 10 years on his now completed singer-songwriter project, Amen Dunes. The only two people appearing on my works are Shaun Sutkus (Perfect Pussy) and Japanese singer Yuki-M.
What’s on your current playlist?
I like to listen to Johnny Smith.
What techniques do you experiment with to get your original sound?
The technical aspect of making music is something I’ve never been very passionate about. I think it’s important for me to preserve an “uninformed approach” to instrumentation as much as possible.
Take us through a day in the recording studio.
I don’t have a real studio. In recent years I’ve moved too many times to organize something stable. Every time I work on a record I look for a new place, sometimes it’s rooms inside friends’ houses. and they are almost always quite uncomfortable places. I’m currently recording inside a photographer’s studio. I feel like this helps me have a distracted mental state that helps me do things that I wouldn’t do if I were in a real studio. I think that when everything is too organized it ends up resembling a normal workplace.
Was there a specific moment in your life where you thought, “this is what I want to do”?
i remember watching this movie from Brian De Palma called The Phantom of the Paradise when I was a kid and I think that sold me the whole thing of being “the dreamer of the dream”, you know.
Any emerging artists on your radar?
Anushka Chkheidze.
What gets your creative juices flowing?
I like the state I reach while making music. It is something similar to meditation and works as a kind of therapy at the same time.
Breakdown the news for us: what can we expect from you this year?
I am releasing the second volume of a series called Pianosequenza I started a few years ago. it’s a series of records entirely focused on the use of automated pianos.
Famous last words?
“I Can Only Repeat Your Love”
Follow Panoram:
Bandcamp – Instagram – Facebook – X – Soundcloud – Youtube – Spotify
