08.19.07
It’s not for the cock, it’s for a new life
The Pan I Am
A year ago, Larrikin Love looked to be on the brink of success and an illustrious career. They split up, however, after one album before they had really began to ride their own wave. Frontman of the band, Ed Larrikin, is back under the guise of The Pan I Am and carries a very different sound.
Larrikin Love, though they had some sort of unique magical mystique about them, where a band who basically created great pop songs. The Pan I Am is, so far it seems, a major departure from this with a sound that is a dark, harsh listen. However, something powerful lies beneath the abstract, often uncomfortable style.
“Lillian Looks Beyond” is like a Larrikin Love song if you took the spring out of its step, replaced the jovial guitars with doom drenched synths and played it to a unhinged rhythm. In other words, it sounds nothing like Larrikin Love. Imagine Thom Yorke solo material combined with a folk purist and you might be close to scratching the surface. It’s dark, odd but also intriguing and rewarding to the listener.
“Final Ecstasy of Jeremiah Ghost” is the least different The Pan I Am’s previous band. With beautiful glockenspiel, soaring violins and Ed’s strange way of phrasing his words juxtaposing with computerised beats, this is the most listener friendly of the bunch.
However, it is hard to see how this transfer of style will fit in to the music world. Is Ed trying to distance himself from his former music by tagging onto the image of his friend Patrick Wolf– weird but wonderful, a poet lost in this modern world? Or is he braking out from his own image and creating exactly the music he wants to make? Maybe all will become clear but at this early stage, Ed Larrikin has created a small collection of wonderful, intriguing songs.