This Is Pan — The Hudson Suite

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 sounds of This Is Pan need their very 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. And all this without a harmony instrument. The quartet is constantly changing the form of its pieces, the instruments move away from the rest individually, trying to find their own way, but ultimately coming back to return to their original form. Because freedom is leeway, flexible and changeable, agile and indulgent. The music gives a nod to pop, touches on the classic and gladly makes space for rock. The instruments are all equal; sometimes brass and woodwind accompany the drums, sometimes the bass plays the melody.