Fly Pan Am Fly Pan Am

September 20,2024

The debut record by Fly Pan Am consists of five long songs clocking in at over an hour of music, spread across three sides of vinyl for the LP format. Chiming, deliberate instrumental rock propelled by insistent motorik drumming and interweaving guitar and bass lines that unfold with obstinate rigour. The band’s ear for melody and approach to (de)construction reveal the twin influences of French pop and krautrock, resulting in a forward-looking experimentalism guided by an unshakeable faith in the unfulfilled possibilities of minimalism and musique concrete in punk-rock. Additional tape manipulations and field recordings by all the group members add drones, transitional accents, and abrupt interruptions to the collage. The music is sometimes willfully infuriating in its pursuit of a concept; “Dans Ses Cheveux Soixante Circuits” proceeds through a lovely series of harmonic changes before settling into a 10-minute repetition of a half-tone interval while the digitalia of guest electronic musician Alexandre St-Onge takes over. The band premiered this piece at Constellation’s Musique Fragile concert series in 1998, and “L’espace au sol…” is a re-recorded version of a piece that first appeared on a split seven-inch with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, put out by local fanzine aMAZEzine, also in 1998.