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Fly Pan Am | Ceux Qui Inventent N'Ont Jamais Vecu (?)

Musique Concrète, the Fly Pan Am way.
CD, Constellation/Konkurrent

Tekst: Bas Ickenroth

Publicatiedatum: 08 juni 2002

The beauty of sabotage and deconstruction. That would have been a more understandable and suitable line than the actual album title, which means something like "Those That Invent HAVE NOT Never Vecu," according to several translation efforts on the web. Apart from the fact that I don't even understand the English translation, the opening line of this review is exactly what Fly Pan Am is all about.

Coming from the fertile grounds around Montreal, Fly Pan Am's new album is the most recent release on the mighty Constellation label. The four members, one of them also a guitar player for Godspeed You Black Emperor!, have a strong fascination with decay and deterioration. That fascination is so strong they decided to self-sabotage their music. How does this sound? Fly Pan Am's music is in itself a highly original form of post-rock, maybe even more a rock version of minimal music: Patterns are repeated for minutes and minutes, creating a dense and addictive atmosphere. Underneath, the drummer is playing monotonous, no-wave funk rhythms which are suprisingly, completely on-the-money. If that isn't enough, the members apply a huge dose of their sabotaging qualities: Tape loops run along, only to get stuck in the recorder; the master tape gets manipulated (sounds dissapear as suddenly as they reappear again so that one begins to worry if the bought CD is alright); loud noise and static float over the repetitive guitar lines as if they come from one and the same instrument. The end result is estranging, very original, unpredictable, but never too far off to frighten the ignorant.

Fly Pan Am's instrumental music has as many similarities with post-rock as it has with Steve Reich's or Tony Conrad's minimal music. They use sabotage as an equally important instrument, next to guitar, bass, and drums. In doing so, they show us that decay is a natural process that ought to be embraced as something beautiful, even if that natural process is being manipulated by human intervention. After all, most aspects of decay are influenced by humans, in one way or another. Musique Concrète, the Fly Pan Am way.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/fly-pan-am/ceux-qui-inventent-n-ont-jamais-vecu/1606/
Meer Fly Pan Am op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/fly-pan-am