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PAN AMERICAN - White Bird Release

Format: CD
Label & Cat.Number: Kranky KRANK CD128
Release Year: 2009
Note: 6th album of LABRADFORD member MARK NELSON
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.50
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"... Die große Frage bei so reduzierten Klängen (trotz ein wenig Gesang) lautet natürlich: Wie halte ich so was gleichbleibend spannend? Nelson gelingt das erneut durch unterschwellige Einflüsse von Dub, wobei man kaum von wirklicher Rhythmik sprechen kann, eher von einem gut spürbaren Pulsieren, das den Stücken aber die nötigen Konturen verleiht. Hinzu kommen verfremdete Gitarrensounds - wie sie sich auch auf Robert Fripps Ambientplatten finden lassen -, was ausreicht, um „White Bird Release" zu einer äußerst atmosphärischen, überraschend emotionalen Vertonung von Stille werden zu lassen, entspannend, aber nicht unaufregend und vor allem niemals austauschbar. Ein ästhetischer Hochgenuss und beseelt von einer abstrakten Form von Schönheit, die man nur auf ganz wenigen Ambientplatten in dieser Güte zu hören bekommt. [Thomas Kerpen, OX-Fanzine]

"The sixth album from MARK NELSON's longtime solo project follows his Quiet City album on Kranky, and more recently the For Waiting, For Chasing release on the Mosz label. Regarding his previous for Quiet City album Pitchfork said, "...a deceptively powerful album that sounds so good in the background that it's easy to overlook how well it's executed." [label info]

"Labradford had long been the American precursor to the lugubrious noir that Bohren & Der Club Of Gore had masterfully grafted with doom. But now that Labradford has quietly ceased activities, guitarist Mark Nelson has fully embraced his solo project Pan American, which had been running concurrently with Labradford for the past seven or eight years. Without Bobby Donne's lonesome bass as a foundation to work with, Nelson's Pan American has relied heavily upon glitchy electronic rhythms and dub-injected studio tricks with varying degrees of success. Perhaps now that Labradford is no more, the Pan American project has taken on a greater sense of purpose as White Bird Release is easily the most accomplished Pan American record to date. There's much less of that dubby electronica to be found on this album; but when employed, Nelson's skeletal pulses enjoy a rich noir ethos resembling those scarce moments of darkened prog-rock dirge for organ and drums offered up on that Deathprod boxset a few years back. But for the most part, Nelson seems comfortable with the Fripp & Eno style streams of pastoral guitar ambience dotted with softened static, smokey vibes, and gracefully arcing drones. The album is based on a letter from Dr. Robert Goddard to H.G. Wells written in 1932 and concerned with the possibility of space flight. While many of the obvious references to White Bird Release harken to the deep space cosmology from the '70s (e.g. Fripp & Eno, Cluster, Schulze, etc.), Nelson's work is not a departure from this rock travelling around the sun, but rather a glance upward to the heavens, while remaining firmly grounded below. The cd has one extra track not to be found on the vinyl." [Aquarius Records review]