Track Listing

1. I'espace Au Sol Est Redessine Par D'immenses Panneaux Bleus
2. Et Aussi I'eclairage De Plastique Au Centre De Tout Ces Compartiments Lateraux
3. Dans Ses Cheveux Soixante Circuits
4. Bibi A Nice 1921
5. Nice Est En Feu

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176083 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-18
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Wow.
I'm not really well versed in krautrock, so I came at Fly Pan Am from a Godspeed/ASMZ post-rock kind of direction (as many people do). Initially I found a disorientingly echoey guitar over a bizzarely funky military beat. I didn't really get into the album until a month or so later.

Now of course, this album is probably my single favourite Constellation records release so far. Huge slabs of drum and bass funk overlayed with simple repeating melodic guitar phrases. It is literally French-Canadian instrumental krautrock.

A lot of people might complain about track three, which consists of 6 minutes of a wonderfully mellow piece much like the other tracks, but then, without warning locks into a hypnotic trance where the same single note is played metronomically over unchanging drums, with only minimal static for variation, for 11 whole minutes leaving the piece without any solid conclusion. For me however, this is great. I love that kind of digital trickery; When does music stop being music? This section seems to be played in its entirety without cheap cutting and pasting and so you come to appreciate the subtle analogue variations and immerse yourself in the pure sound rather than more aesthetic concerns.

As an architecture student, I also see some strong links to architectural design on this disc. Somehow Fly Pan Am manage to weave a tapestry of wordless spaces, filled with columns of drums and bass around which spiraling guitars make their way ever upward while lights gradually change in colour and brightness. This isn't wallpaper music, this is technical drawing music.

A love / hate relationship.
I want to love all of this album, but it's so hard. Tracks 1, 2, 4 and 5 are amazing, as are the 1st 6 or so minutes of track three. but then, something strange and emormously annoying happens. The same note is played metronomically for 10 MINUTES, with some static in the backgound, a bass beat and a drum roll. You will wonder if your cd is skipping if it wasn't for the changing static that sometimes rises and fall. It's like a chinese water torture. The strange thing is, that after a few minutes you somehow become accustomed to it (if you are in the right mood)and the sound become all you can imagine the album being, but you begin to hope it will go somewhere. But no, after 10 infuriating miutes in which you begin to think your head will explode, it stops. suddenly, without missing a beat. it made me jump at the sudden absense of the sound i'd come to accept as part of the ambient sound of my living room along with the buzzing of the water filter in my aqaurium and the fridge, it was alarming that after all this time it was gone. Then at the beginning of track 4 there is no music, just the sound of someone pressing record and setting up equipment. for 3 minutes..., then the song starts, and somehow, the last ten minutes are forgotten. A very strange album that you can't admit liking, but in some strange way is adictive (as much as i wanted to, i couldn't get up and skip the ten minutes). Buy it if you are not easily frustrated and are not likely to damage your music system whilst waiting for the song to end.

Want something different?
Having seen this band support Godspeed you Black Emporer! and not really liking them at first, I took a risk buying their album after hearing an MP3 on the web. I'm glad I did. Some people may find bits a tad strange (one part of track two sounds like an amplified coffee perculator! ), but there are lovely repeated melodies in between, and tracks 1 and 5 are absolutely fantastic. the chances are that if you like Godspeed and Constellation releases, then you need to get this!