Fly Pan Am – Ceux Qui Inventent N’ont Jamais Vécu LP Constellation

Fly Pan Am sharpened their sonic and conceptual knives to shiny surgical points on this second full-length. Having gradually moved from long, reverb-drenched repetition to concise, bone-dry repetition in their live shows at the time, these songs are marked by a full embrace of stuttering, fucked-up funk. The result is a tightly-wound record that frequently seems to pop its own springs. A strange and resistant strain of instrumental rock had been breeding in the tweaked brains of these four boys, this record emerged as a startlingly infectious little virus, helping to keep the form alive by undermining and destabilising it in brash and unpredictable ways. Fly Pan Am chewed up casual conjunctions of rock and electronics, leaving that hollow, worn-out ‘post-rock’ category in a crumpled heap behind them. The group was serious about their krautrock, but about a great many other things as well, whether New York no-wavisms, afro-beat, or musique concrete.

Recorded by Thierry (GYBE, Silver Mt Zion, Black Ox Orkestar) on the new 24-track tape machine at the original Hotel2Tango, Ceux Qui Inventent… is precisely stitched together, with the rhythm section of Felix Morel (drums) and J.S. Truchy (bass) serving as a new-wave-meets-no-wave backbone for the screwed-down/spastic guitar work of Roger Tellier-Craig and Jonathan Parant. Self-sabotage is the recurring theme, with a variety of moves, both instrumental and ‘artificial’, serving to disrupt and dislocate the music. No, your CD player is not defective — those skipping sounds are intentional.