Fly Pan Am

Artist: Fly Pan Am
Label: Constellation
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 666561000820
EAN: 0666561000820
ASIN: B00002DDR2

Release Date: 1999-10-26

Fly Pan Am

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Indie Rock

| Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Experimental Rock

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Experimental Music

| Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Similar Items:

Ceux Qui Inventent N'Ont Jamais Vacu
Sedatif en Frequencies et Sillons
Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn
N'Écoutez Pas
Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward

Customer Reviews:

Solid Album.......2006-03-16

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.

Dissapointing Debut.......2005-01-09

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.

Not for everyone.......2002-01-20

The English language was not designed to have words that describe music like this. Maybe that's why the track titles are in French. This Montreal quartet gets lumped in with the so-called post-rock genre, and they probably should. They certainly would not, and should not, be considered in a mainstream audience - at least not in the US. The tunes on this album develop very slowly. A musical idea that some bungling, top 40 rock band would blurt out in the first 6 seconds, might take Fly Pan Am 10 minutes to cultivate. This makes for a delicate, never overextending-itself record . . . almost minimalist. What that means is that this album is certainly not for everyone. Some people will respect its artistic merit. Others will relax and fall asleep to it. Others will hate it passion.

There are some specific musical choices that are still confusing after several listens. First, how does one come up with music like this? Some of these tunes are more than 10 minutes long and they could easily be longer. They walk along at a steady pace, there's just put no correlation to the typical pop song formula. That's a good thing . . . for some. Fortunately there is no full time singer. He'd be totally lost. Forget verse, refrain, verse, refrain, bridge, refrain, these songs are all bridge. Also, don't their fingers get tired? The bass player plays the same 3 notes for the entire song (maybe it's more like pop music than I thought . . .). Don't you think the drummer would want to put in a drum fill every once in a while? I guess not. These are really just minor complaints, but you haven't even heard about the nine and half minutes of insistently playing the same two chords over and over while tape hiss screeches in and out. Did they forget to fade out? Maybe they just wanted a 60-minute album.

Don't get the wrong idea, though. The CD has its high points. I'm not going to try to write the names (I don't even know what they mean) but track 2 actually seems have a melody. Actually, it might have been my brain constructing a melody on the spot, but it worked nevertheless. And the tape hiss even seemed to make sense. The last track, however, is really where they hit the mark. Fly Pan Am would have crashed and burned had they not made Track 5. It's a whimsical musical journey with wispy female vocals and an intriguing guitar line. If you're finger's on the "skip" button, pass over the 10 minutes of tape hiss. Don't skip "Nice Est en Feu!"

1 cup of Labradford, 1 cup of Godspeed, add Tortoise, serve!.......2002-01-19

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.

Music Album:

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Masada, Vol. 9 ~ Masada

Spicy ~ Richard %22Groove%22 Holmes

Wild Bill Tapes ~ Bill Davison

Above the Battleground ~ Mike Lee

Kind of Blue ~ Miles Davis

Bokuga Ikiteitakoto ~ Miwako Okuda

Claude François ~ Claude Fran%C3%A7ois

Cantan Florentino, Ruiz y Duran ~ Jose Basso

Original Best 1991-2002 ~ Sojiro

Honest Workers ~ Kelly Family