Montreal feels like a discarded hybrid-- an experiment from mid-century to fuse Europe and North America that didn't quite hold. Walk the streets on a Sunday night-- it's completely empty. Even the residents seem resigned to the city's shortcoming. Walking back from the waterfront at dark, I encountered no one. The subway (which had a lengthy French acronym that slips my mind) was deserted.
My stop was Olympic Park, a ghost colony of decaying sports facilities and lawns on the west outskirts. The entire complex was abandoned in the 70's. The domed stadium juts from the grass like an Atlantaen ship poured of molten bone. The giant vertebrae-shaped structure seems slick, but closer inspection reveals fissures and chips. In fact, the removable roof never works. Limp cables keep the dome closed eternally. Rumor has it that a baseball team still occasionally plays there.
Understandably, this is the home of Fly Pan Am. Their very name suggests rusted nostalgia, cosmopolitanism, and sleek hipness. Unfortunately, Pan Am hasn't flown in quite some time. The few memories we have now are of blue stewardesses, hijacks, and disaster. This spectre haunts the self-titled LP from these instrumental Canadians
The music is Pluto stark; it cushions like stucco. Guitars clink like windchimes over subtly rumbling bass. Cold samples hover above the skeleton. When a female chorus suddenly appears deep in the album, it feels like a sprout in ice. Wires turn to wings. If Mogwai weren't concerned with film directors and pop stars, they might make such bold statements. Yet, arctic urban ambiance clouds the middle bulk of this album, turning the record into an unwanted lecture on art. It could either be the sound of someone starting a tractor across a frozen field or a low-volume cricket.
When the band settles into pulsating ghost-rock, the sly bass and humming guitars can rise a spectre from the corpse. Otherwise, it's much like Montreal at night-- isolated, foggy, and filled with structures and shadows borrowed from better places and times. A snowfall can be beautiful in its first hour, but it inevitably becomes gray slush.
