This Is Pan

The music stretches really slowly, sleek and supple, gradually approaching a tension borderline. Tones are lengthened, rules bent. Like in a maelstrom, the individual instruments are then dragged back on to their original path just to start spreading themselves out on it again – teasing elasticity. And then a loud bang. Followed by silence. The music by This Is Pan has earned its own classification – elastic jazz. The four musicians – Matthias Kohler, saxophone and clarinet, Lukas Thoeni, trumpet and flugelhorn, André Pousaz, bass, and Gregor Hilbe, drums – expertly play with this elasticity. The quartet is constantly changing the form of its pieces, the instruments move away from the rest individually, trying to find their way, but coming back to return to their original form. Elements from pop, rock and classic are playfully woven into the pieces. This is not music you can really categorise and, like Pan, the god of shepherds from Greek mythology, it stands for different possible interpretations. Sounds which are accessible, but always surprising and mystical. Definitely worth listening to.