Fly Pan Am

Fly Pan Am | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 26, 1999)
• Original Release Date: October 26, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Constellation
• ASIN: B00002DDR2
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #394,078 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 1 cup of Labradford, 1 cup of Godspeed, add Tortoise, serve!, January 19, 2002

By 

almosthappy (San Diego, CA, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Fly Pan Am (Audio CD)

Constellation Records in Montreal and Kranky Records in Chicago are very similar in many fundamental ways. They share and embrace the same aesthetical and musical visions. So for the people who dig the bands from either label, Fly Pan Am's debut should sound somewhat familiar and comfortable to them. A cross between Godspeed Your Black Emperor and Labradford, with a hint of Tortoise, Fly Pan Am produces sounds that are typical of the post-rock and minimalist movement. A great deal of repetitions and paced tension building. A very imaginative and a very wide spectrum of sounds: fuzzy drones, sad bass lines, almost inaudible and unidentifiable beeps and buzzes, crispy and clear guitar melodies, surreal vocals, water sound... Unlike its label mate, Godspeed, Fly Pan Am's music doesn't scream at you with an avalanche of emotions: it is more ambient, more trance-like. Also unlike Labradford, whose music is so ambient and so subdued, Fly Pan Am provides a constant dose of audible sentiments. Good stuff for the discerning music fan.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dissapointing Debut, January 8, 2005

By 

Funnelwebmaster (Honolulu, Hawaii) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fly Pan Am (Audio CD)

There's a big difference between repetitive, sparse, minimalistic instrumentation that manages to capture innovative sound textures and emotion, and that which is repetitive for lack of any real musical message at all. This release by Fly Pan Am is in the latter category. I am a great fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Ether Bunnies, Tungsten and other so-called minimalistic/post-rock/noise/bands, and have no problem whatsoever listening to and enjoying instrumental music that might otherwise be classified as drone-based. But Fly Pan Am strikes me as a band that had a few good ideas worth approx. 15 minutes of tape time, yet decied to extend them unecessarily to a 60 min CD. Track 3, for example, features the same simple guitar/bass/drums coda played over and over, without the slightest variation, with interspersed high-pitched digital distortion that is much too up-front in the mix. The overall impression is that the band thought it would somehow be a cool, cute, artsy thing to do; perhaps it achieves those aims conceptually, but musically it is unimaginative, flat-sounding and boring. With only a few exceptions, the rest of the CD sounds like half-baked ideas that should have been fleshed out a bit more rather than extended.
Nice try, guys, better luck next time.

2.0 out of 5 stars Soaring low, August 14, 2009

By 

IRate - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fly Pan Am (Audio CD)

2 1/2

Introducing themselves with a somewhat hypnotic, more organic sound than what further fractured outings would yield, FPA's debut nonetheless falls flat over the course of five lengthy tracks which more often than not stalls out in vacant repetition.