Customer Reviews

Fly Pan Am

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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 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.

This debut album from Fly Pan Am is a solid peice of work. It is not as experimental as later albums, but definately sets the tone for later work. Aside for that, Fly Pan Am is propably the most unique member of the Constellation label. Their mixture of rock with the obscure sets them apart from other bands on that label and from most bands out there today.

a great album to listen at night with lights off. it puts you in a trance. includes a member from godspeed you black emperor!