Wonderful words by the ever erudite Adam Turner.

As with so many artists, the first time I heard Pan*American was in an Andrew Weatherall mix. In 2017, in a live session, he started with the song Both Ends Fixed, an 11-minute instrumental, released on  FatCat’s Split Series in 1999. Minimalist and contemplative with a percussive sound like a pen being tapped against a radiator, and nothing in any hurry to get anywhere quickly.

The new Pan*American album, Fly The Ocean On A Silver Plane, is a reflection on journeys and travel, ‘the real kind as well as the metaphorical.’ It starts with Silver Plane, Now Boarding and the field recorded sounds of an airport departure lounge and children’s voices, before adding guitar. Departure lounges never seem this blissful in real life – the golden age of air travel promised stress-free flying but the reality of the modern experience is restrictions, queues, confusion and spending money, trapped, while you wait for your number to appear on the board. Pan*American’s 10 tracks here then are more of a soundtrack to trip taken while sat at home – musical flights rather than the actual agony of being stuck in an airport.

The music is a blend of electric and acoustic guitars, with the faintest hints of singing, synths and laptops. The album’s cover features a photo of Pan*Am’s mother, a picture of a woman from the 1950s about to cross the tarmac to board a plane. The arrival of his own children and departure of his parents formed the personal backdrop to the record, and some of the song titles are very much concerned with crossing over from life into death – Death Cleaning, Entrance To Afterlife and Heaven’s Waiting Room all tell their own stories, as much like the chapters of a book as pieces of music. Despite the titles, nothing gloomy or melancholic, more weightless and transitory, lighter than air, with layers of notes, strings, chords and drones, that lift and carry the listener. Entrance To Afterlife, especially, is joyous and heartfelt. Silver Tramway (In Snow) rattles and shimmers. Honeyman-Scott has several guitar parts – pedal steel, acoustic – plus a lot of space, echo and harmonics. Its title, I’m guessing, a tribute to the late James Honeyman-Scott, guitarist in The Pretenders. 

A Window In The Strings, however, does bring in some shadows and doubt, opening the door to a little melancholy. A mournful violin creates counterpoint to the plucked guitars and golden drones, but even this can’t last for long. We end at Golden Gate, Silver City, 4 minutes of promise and wonder, of take off, and that point where we clear the clouds, get that view from the window, looking down on the planet’s canopy. That sense of awe one gets looking down from so high up. No bumpy landing or unfriendly officials at the immigration control desk, just the soaring feeling of endless flight.

Pan*American’s Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane can be ordered directly from Kranky. 

You can find more proper, on point, prose from Adam Turner over at his own brilliant blog, The Bagging Area. Adam is also part of the admin team at the mighty Flightpath Estate.