The release of Eric Pan's 'There Is No Path Back' must come with an incredible amount of personal and creative satisfaction - serving as the final chapter within his Travel Poems series, Pan's ambition and scope have delivered an exceptional trilogy of albums with each entry paying loving homage to his experiences and travels, as well as the experiences and travels of others.
Born in Taiwan, Eric Pan's penchant and appreciation for travel started at an unwittingly young age - moving to the US and having jazz become a large part of his life when he reached the University of California would ultimately be the start of the pianist's consummate education. Performing across the States and eventually the world, Pan's musical vision would go on to be influenced by each and every experience garnered from all corners of the world.
The Travel Poems series in of itself finds its inspiration from stories - the shared experience of our collective, individual and unique narratives that go on to shape us and everyone we interact with. It's a romantic take to have on music and the world around us in accepting that the art that you make is actually part of a bigger picture than just one's own perspective on things.
Certainly the case when considering where said inspiration has brought Eric Pan.
Now totalling thirty songs over the course of three discs, Chapter 1 was initially unveiled in 2020 as 'Secret Towns' with Chapter 2, 'The Night Sea', following two years later. Cited as having a recording schedule that saw Pan perform across four continents alongside varying musical arrangements - sometimes through solo performances and others aided by drummers Nir Sabag and Sebastian Chiriboga, and bassists Dean Torrey and Hugo Reydet - there is a concerted effort for the music to be as immersive as possible with subtle inclusions of the hustle and bustle of small village markets, intricately interspersed field recordings and local chanting.
Beautifully conceived and elegantly performed, the music throughout 'There Is No Path Back' creates moments of joy and inspiration ('Sunrise Market', 'After the Whistle') as well as moments of lament and introspection ('Sequel to a Memory', 'Ladder of Damascus') but each instinctual reaction is to be absolutely embraced.
As stated by this album's title, 'there is no path back'. But why would you want one? There is the travelled road and the unbeaten path and Eric Pan's Travel Poems trilogy is about taking those steps into the unknown to craft your own legacy... to write your own story.
There is a wonderful poem by Antonio Machado which I think eloquently conveys much of Pan's motivations for this series which I will leave you with...
"Traveller, there is no path
The path is made by walking.
By walking you make a path
And turning, you look back
At a way you will never tread again"
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