live @ Iota 5.7.2000
Theoretically, a performance by Pan American-- whose rhythmic sound is constructed with quiet, rippling whooshes and looped samples-- at Iota-- the Clarendon, Virginia club that is often packed with people and whooping bar chatter that would do a honky-talk proud--seemed a mismatch made in Heaven. At Pan American’s free show Sunday night, however, the atmosphere resembled the National Cathedral more than a Texas roadhouse as Mark Nelson piloted an engaging flight in front of an silent and absorbed crowd.
Nelson, who is Pan American’s only human member, established his penchant for hypnotic rhythmic creations with Chicago-via-Richmond, Va. trio LaBradford. As Pan American, Nelson has sharpened his focus on stretching oscillating rhythmic patterns, and the best selections on his fine recent album for Kranky records, ‘360 Business/360 Bypass’, evoke many of the same sensations as Jamaican dub music--that engorged, loping outgrowth of reggae.
Nelson’s 45-minute set--essentially one long piece-- didn’t necessarily sound like dub pioneers King Tubby or Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, but the way he piled sound and groove by adding and subtracting sounds from the sampler, mixer and rhythm generator around him certainly owed much to their techniques. For someone whose music is so concerned with motion, Nelson himself was eerily calm, not even tapping his foot as he serenely engaged and disengaged switches and knobs. Without visual stimuli, it was easier for the audience to close their eyes and grasp where Pan American’s excellent set had taken them: on a gently buffeting night ride on a long extinct airline.
Washington Post, May 2000
