Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane is the brainchild of Mark Nelson, aka Pan•American, hailing from Chicago, Illinois. Since 1998, he has been creating deeply rich, textural soundscapes that never fail to blossom into something completely unexpected, often navigating themes of memory and human existence.
His latest solo album plays out like the sensation of crossing cities in a little aeroplane; each track feels like its own journey to a nameless destination, but looking out the window, there is a sense of safety, comfort, and calm. Let’s start our journey with Silver Plane, Now Boarding, the ultimate calm, a slow and rippling opener that is content to go nowhere fast, the hum of distant voices against symphonic instrumentation. Following that up is the equally transcendent Death Cleaning, which carries the distant murmurs of individuals we have left behind, maybe lost in the last city or missed at the airport terminal. Entrance to Afterlife is a delicious bit of glitchtronica, buzzing, and shining like the lights of a neon billboard from up high.
Continuing onwards, Heaven’s Waiting Room and Honeyman-Scott are ghostly, spectral and filled with a sense of mystery. They possess the kind of sound that could be beamed to you from 100 years into the future, but a feeling of longing and the fading of memories that could be associated with something from 100 years deep in the past. Nelson is creating sound out of time, and the effect is distinct and moving.
Speaking about the story of the album itself, Nelson said: “The music on this record is a reflection of journeys and travel. The real-world kind and the metaphorical ones as well. Having experienced the arrival of my children, the decline and departure of my parents, and the many years of venturing out and returning home in my own life, travel feels like the perfect tropology to consider the mysteries we inhabit. Travel and its impressions, rituals, superstitions – the possibilities and risks – all open up onto the landscape of our biggest questions, fear and wonder.”
Nelson is adept at conjuring so many different tones, moods, and rhythms, but applied in a delicate way that the project never once feels directionless. Sometimes a journey is never a case of point A to point B, and Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane requires your full attention to immerse you in the journey, but when you give yourself over to the beauty and the intricacies within, it will make your heart beat that little bit faster.
Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane (March 20th, 2026) Kranky