Cliffs

 

Throwback: PAIN 2025

 

I’m slowly being replaced by my painting

It encroaches daily  

By Piper April 2026

quiet see

 

quiet see 5/4/2026

A long time ago my artistic heart broke and it cost me years

New Editions Sampled | NWA011 - New Weird Australia

 

This was a pinnacle period for Paneye, with live shows and NWE releasing my 2010 album Lost in a Dark Aquarium.  

Stuart Buchanan, the owner of NWE, wrote the below linear notes:

It was initially a good experience, but part of the requirement for having my album released was that NWE butcher my original artwork (attached link to butchered art).

This change happened without my artistic consent, and I was put under loads of pressure to accept it retroactively. I was very young and I thought "well, maybe my art isn't marketable for some reason."

I really regret not protesting it more.

I was gutted about how shit the altered album cover looked and it really hurt my confidence and desire to engage or continue at all with NWE, even though the good times with NWE were great.

Embarrassingly, I had friends asking me why my album artwork was changed. I couldn't really tell them why, but privately I just thought my original art must have looked crap to my label, so they replaced it.

Loads of people loved the album, but nobody liked the new album art. Friends were visibly confused and concerned. It literally looks like a piece of Google AI crap.

The partial remedy was Stu's linear notes write up for the album, for me at the time, I found quite complementary. I just couldn't forgive my album artwork being binned. It soured all the positive feelings that I had towards the label. Unfortunately, my feelings around this led me to not submit any further music or play live for NWE again, aside brief compilation appearances.

It was 4 years until I released another public Paneye album, independently, as my NWE period coincided with a spiral into self-doubt.

This hit to my artistic confidence didn't see Paneye release any more music publicly until 2014, even though vast numbers of songs were created privately. At the time, in my distorted view, nothing was good enough. I doubted my visions, and it seemed to stem from my NWE album being violated and turned into something I didn't recognise. I hated how the NWE album cover looked. It was a giant ugly cancer mole on the face of Paneye.

The NWE side of Paneye became unattractive to me, and I wanted to bury it.

When it came to Paneye - the album art was crucial to what I was trying to communicate through my music. Without the album art, the songs were faceless orphans. Or worse, made to wear ugly uniforms and attend an abusive boarding school.

I withered away at the end of 2010, and slowly put together my next album Remote Summer Clouds after 4 years of writing hundreds of songs and scrapping many albums. It was released independently, and through Illuminated Paths, in 2014.

A few years later, in 2016, Stu and I reconnected randomly. I sent him my latest album, and he released 2016's Desertism with unaltered album art on his boutique and now-defunct Providence Label.

It initially looked like we were back! ...but our relationship never really recovered, and Stu appeared to rapidly lose interest in my work, and was absorbed in many other projects. By this time, Stu’s profile was much larger than when I first met him in 2010. 

2010 was our moment, and by 2016 things had changed too much. Communicating with Stu had stopped being a couple of chill music lovers. It was more distant, business-like and cold. 

I do appreciate the Providence release, even though Stu hasn't kept it in his current catalogue. He also terminated Providence the label, which is a pity. It's all in the past now. and this is just for the memoir.

This is what Stu wrote about Desertism in 2016:

Paneye is Sydney-born and Dubai-based artist Will Treffry. Not that you would know it. Paneye has been making music on the outside for several years, self-releasing five lengthy albums of material direct from his own web site – a micro world inhabited by people that Paneye calls ‘The Butter People’.  He is beloved by small, personal music blogs – writers who, like Paneye, exist in the shadows, on the fringe, and find solace and connection in his works.

Unbeknown to the world at large, Paneye has also racked up over 150,000 streams and downloads on the Free Music Archive; predominantly for his 27-track 2010 opus ‘Lost In A Dark Aquarium’ – co-released by New Weird Australia and Brooklyn’s Orchid Tapes, home to Balam Acab and Alex G. He has also released a further three albums in collaboration with Jasper Rice under the banner of Bristles On The Carapace.

Provenance nudges Paneye gently in the light with the release of his sixth full length, ‘Desertism’. Recorded entirely in Dubai, the album represents an evolution of his work from lo-fi ambient constructions to a more structured song-based psych-folk approach, whilst retaining his customary dream-like shroud  – bringing his own voice to the fore and recruiting secondary vocals from a conspirator known only as Khat.

‘Desertism’ may well be a tentative step out of the shadows, and it often plays like a reconnaissance mission to another world – either way, it’s a bewitching, original work that represents the legion of outsider artists who resolutely follow a singular path, and end up at a beautiful place quite unlike any other.

Link to my butchered album art:

Paneye ‘Lost In A Dark Aquarium’ | NWAED003 - New Weird Australia

Link to Desertism's Providence archive:

Paneye – Desertism (Provenance) – STUART BUCHANAN

My future with Highest Hopelessness and Paneye

 

The future of Highest Hopelessness is uncertain. We have a lost some key members, and there are competing creative priorities.

My role in Highest Hopelessness was primarily as a song writer and melody maker. I had a very limited role in the production, mastering, final cuts and studio wizardry of the songs. That credit goes to Fire Rabbit’s production, earth snake’s drum processing and Hex’s synth tech and gear. 

Without the talents of these guys, even if I am bringing melodies, Highest Hopelessness can’t exist as it was. 

Paneye, on the other hand, never dies. I will probably go back to recording trippy lo-fi guitar music, while I wait to see how things play out in this Fleetwood Mack drama. 

There is also a chance myself earth snake, Fire Rabbit and Hex might reform as something new. 

Transfigurement

 

Under The House by Highest Hopelessness

GRIEF

The demo is live on Bandcamp: GRIEF | Highest Hopelessness

It will soon be on Spotify, Apple Music etc. 
 

techno boys

Blonde for a night

 

Owls

 

The wonderful man I’ve spent every NYE with for the past 5 years

 A longtime, talented collaborator and partner in crime. A boi from a boat. 

Street kids (vintage)

 

Happy New Year

 From me and Andy’s head 

Vibin with the new Highest Hopelessness album

 

Pain by Highest Hopelessness

Listen here: Pain | Highest Hopelessness


 

Paneye live mixing Highest Hopelessness

 https://youtube.com/shorts/SrKQ7qdCelQ?si=_dotuZ7__AK1bXnO

New gig Thursday with Taylor!

 

Observer

 

Green Gully and the Green Man

 

God.exe

God.exe - https://highesthopelessness.bandcamp.com/album/god-exe
 

Save

 https://open.spotify.com/album/5pr8wZIdBxIxlfBKDU2Nbj?si=Zu0mM7a8SjS4DHBaKnAeAw

Highest Hopelessness

Highest Hopelessness may have overtaken Paneye as my main musical focus now, and I feel it is time to talk about how it came to be. 

For years, I held a vast trove of unreleased songs and sketches. Many of these sketches were electronic, house, trance, and techno tunes that never quite fit the minimalist, psych-folk direction of Paneye. Although I’d planned to release them one day, they sat in the background of my work.

My earliest influences came from home. My mother often played Massive Attack and later Weekend Players around the house. That sound world of chill-out, trip hop, house, trance seeped into me, even while I was primarily developing as a psych-folk guitarist. 

In 2022, my friend Kim invited me to perform at one of his Nude Life Drawing events as a background musician for the models. That night opened doors I hadn’t expected. Most importantly, it brought me close to Fire Rabbit, who is a music producer who prefers to remain anonymous.

Fire Rabbit and I began jamming. They breathed new life into my old sketches while adding vast amounts of their own material. Soon we decided to form a group, with Fire Rabbit as primary producer and mixer. Together, we brought hundreds of song ideas into the fold.

We then teamed up with Earth Snake, a beat master who transformed our placeholder rhythms and quickly joined full-time on drums and beat programming. 

Val, a bass head, came in to round us out at the low end, as both Fire Rabbit and I typically don’t make bass-heavy music. Earth Snake and Val became the engine room for the band. Val also provided many of the distant and reverb- drenched “barely-there” vocals. Many of her bass contributions are original additions to our songs, and she also contributes occasional ambient synths and guitar effects. Pegg and later Kenny expanded the vocal dimension further, creating a trio of female voices.

Things kept moving, and old mate Hex caught wind of the band and turned up with a giant synth and loads of other indescribably weird devices. Starting as a guest artist, Hex joined as a full-time member on lead-synths once the synergy was established. He has since become a key contributor of music and ideas, and a key producer and mixer with Fire Rabbit and Earth Snake. Without them, Highest Hopelessness would lean far more lo-fi.

Today, Highest Hopelessness has grown into something more like a fraternity - a collective of artists and musicians. I’m the unofficial spokesperson, since the others wish to remain behind the curtain, but I can’t claim the credit alone. This is a shared creation.  

So here is our backstory, and also the reason my planned releases of old electronic material never surfaced. It’s also why Paneye’s Incantations from 2022 hasn’t been put on Spotify yet. Those things will come in time, but right now the focus is Highest Hopelessness. 

What started as 2 friends jamming and sending files to each other has evolved into a space where old sketches became reborn songs, and 7 artists fused into something larger than any one of us.

Love

 My band’s new album is out on Spotify. 

Purchase it here: https://highesthopelessness.bandcamp.com/album/love

Heartland

Listen/purchase here: Heartland | Highest Hopelessness
 

Lullaby of the Witch

More amazing singing from Kenny

A Wart named Simon

Highest amongst synths and forests

Sunglasses after dark

 

Happiness Makes Her Wither - Paneye & Highest Hopelessness (demo)

This is a demo full of promise.

Paneye & Highest Hopelessness - You were sighing (feat. kenny kendall vo...

My new band Highest Hopelessness (minus Pegg) helped me flesh out this old Paneye tune. Fire Rabbit production takes it to the next level, and Kenny stopped by for her incredible vocal contribution (comes in at the 2mins mark). What a voice she's got! Thanks gang! We will do a proper music video soon.

Credits:

Pan - synths, guitar

Fire Rabbit - synths, ambience, production

earth snake - drums

Valxlum - bass

kenny kendall - vocals 

Kenny's stoned lyrics (She wrote them on the spot!):

"You saw your lubbie. You lubbie, you sigh. Now I'm dead now.

Now I'm dead now.

I say you love me. You love me, you were sighing."

If you like the sound of it, we are on Spotify as Highest Hopelessness, with a bunch of albums out.

Dreamboat

 

Throwback to an early gig

 

Collabs in Ambience

 

My new band, a collab between Sydney and NY. 

By the Moon

 

I’m playing again tonight!

 

Marcus Magic Cavey Treffry

 

Paneye Live 26 June, 2025