Behind the project Pan American (Kranky, March 1998) is once again the genius of Mark Nelson, guitarist and singer of Labradford, who had just moved from Richmond to Chicago. Here he takes on the role of a composer of ambient dance music, the Brian Eno of the post-house and trip-hop era. The tones are gray and muted, the rhythms stagger with effort, and the songs trudge along anemically. The more conceptual pieces are tonal exercises that rely on looping, reverb, and diffusion. At the heart of his experimentation is always a highly analytical (and often subtle) exploration of rhythm.
In Starts Friday, slowed chords reminiscent of a Beethoven sonata are looped over a dub pulse. On this framework rests a catatonic whispering. An instrumental bridge loops drowsy Hawaiian chords and an out-of-tune bossa nova music box. The track closes with a tail of psychedelic effects.
The rhythm dominates in Remapping, lost in the voiceless strumming of the guitar, like Tibetan percussion, and in the heavy dub reverberations, this time tempered by drums and a prominent wooden beat. These elements give the track a sense of primitiveness and tropicality, over which slow electronic melodies drift.
With Noun, the electronics become airier, and the dub sinks its dark resonances into a lattice of vortices. Nelson succeeds when he retreats into music of silence, suggestion, and chiaroscuro, borrowing something precious from Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom.
A handful of brief compositions explore a consumerist territory on the border between ambient and bossa nova. In Lent, jazzy organ chords establish a relaxed, parlor-like atmosphere, while a dreamy twang recalls a Duane Eddy slow number. Here, the dub feels somewhat out of place.
Lake Supplies, however, hits upon a brilliant melody, rendered percussively by the guitar, and a suggestive counterpoint from the synthesizer. The album closes with the ominous cloud of Part One, in which the acoustic sounds are completely unrecognizable.

After the Pan American hiatus, Labradford returned with Mi Media Naranja (Kranky, 1998), which, disappointing the expectations raised by Labradford, is an almost entirely instrumental album. Each of the seven tracks follows the same process: the guitar lays down a three-note figure, enriched by the bass and other instruments, and the piano enters with a solemn crescendo, bringing the song to completion. The most recognizable track is S, practically a three-part suite: in the first part, the guitar mimics the style of a Western film soundtrack; in the second, the violin carries the theme into a classical concert; and in the third, the harmony drifts off, cradled among the keyboard notes. WR perhaps has the most romantically melodic motif, enlivened by sampling of children’s voices. C is lightly jazz-inflected, reminiscent of Tim Buckley’s arrangements. An exception to the pattern is I, where the organ takes the lead from the start with its solemn gospel phrases. V (the only “sung” track) is a sinister psychodrama in which Nelson mutters, “did you bury it deep enough?” The closing P repeats the same trick as the previous tracks, simply continuing for nine minutes. Labradford may have perhaps overused their method.

E Luxo So (Kranky, 1999), entirely instrumental, contains six long tracks titled simply after the collaborators. The sound is more “artificial” than ever, in the sense that it makes heavy use of loops and samplers. The genius of Brown and Nelson lies in emphasizing the contrast between this almost computer-like method and the rich, organic, and tactile timbres of acoustic instruments. In the end, what matters is the “panorama” rather than the melody or rhythm.
The weakness remains the same as on the previous album: overreliance on the method. 1 sips chords—or rather reverbs of chords—for eight minutes, never taking flight; 2 endlessly recycles a Western-film guitar twang and a mechanical piano motif, with minimal, drowsy variations; 6 slowly modifies a metronomic rhythm and a dulcimer motif.
The approach gives way to heart on a few occasions, particularly 3, a melancholy baroque adagio for dulcimer and string section, and 4, a jazzy, depressed score halfway between trip-hop and Tim Buckley. 5 presses forward with a heavy stride and a piano figure, overlaid by an organ lament and swallowed by a sigh of violins. Labradford’s style has perhaps become overly minimalist, but it has also achieved a composed and austere sense of classicism.

Mark Nelson returned to his pet project Pan American with 360 Business 360 Bypass (Kranky, 2000). The six extended (and mostly instrumental) tracks continue his program of psychedelic ambient music in a somewhat less austere, more casual tone. Nelson builds minimalist soundscapes and populates them with slow-motion events. The quiet loping pulsation of Steel Stars, reminiscent of Aphex Twin, drifts for five minutes in a celestial trance before a sudden change in timbre plunges it into an angst-stricken atmosphere for the remaining six minutes. The even longer Double Rail trots at a light pace and breaths thoughtful horn solos. Reggae hiccups, minimalist keyboard figures and jazzy horn solos are blended even more boldly in Both Ends Fixed.
Nonetheless, Nelson's genius is better revealed by Code, a shorter composition whose dub thuds support ceremonial chanting (from guests Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low) and are counterpointed by cosmic undercurrents of the keyboards (a less commercial version of Enigma). Rhythm is a mere abstraction in the short Coastal, a ghostly echo of tribal percussions in a stasis of chilly drones. The center of K Luminate, a complex clockwork of interlocked patterns, continuously shifts until it stabilizes on a steady pulse, like a heartbeat.
In Pan American's music, humility and ambition often go hand in hand: the humbler the overall feeling of a piece, the more ambitious its construction and development. The process is hardly recognizable, especially when, at the end, all that is left is a weak, unfocused signal. Voices and horns are sometimes brought in to resurrect harmony, but only for Nelson to kill it again, at a deeper level.

If there ever was any doubt that Brown and Nelson were mostly interested in form rather than in content, Labradford's Fixed::Context (Kranky, 2001) stands as the ultimate proof. The spirit of the four lenghty tracks is a return to the aseptic mood of Brian Eno's original ambient program, albeit one in which details matter. Each piece overflows with "dark matter", with invisible sounds that are nonetheless the substance, whereas the whole is merely a vehicle, a backdrop, a context. The 18-minute Twenty proceeds by accumulation of digital noises, ambient waves, radio frequencies, spare metallic tones, dreamy reverbs and tremolos. Wien feasts on floating echoes of high and low pitches.
A serene and peaceful atmosphere emanates from Up To Pizmo and David. Both tracks are lulled by waves: there is a circular motion at work that sustains the harmonica- and twang-based melody of the former and the somnambulant guitar pattern of the latter.
Widely recognized as pioneers of a new genre, Brown and Nelson can afford the luxury of gambling on the acoustic properties of their skeletal soundscapes.

Pan American's third album The River Made No Sound (Kranky, 2002) whispers languid tones into liquid, murky textures, weaves wadded rhythms that drift through the music rather than support the music. Plains sounds like a tribute to Brian Eno's impressionistic vignettes, as distant piano notes and electronic ambience loop around each other. The icy rustling of St Cloud recalls Monet's techniques in painting panoramas. The pulsing alien soundscapes of For A Running Dog and Place Names and the psychedelic ghosts of Settled add another dimension to Nelson's larval art. A feeble melody floats inside the frantic dub cycles of Right Of Return, lending an eerie quality to an otherwise mellow trance. In the most awe-inspiring moment on the album (Red Line), shades flutter in the dark, echoing the thin pulse of jazzy drums and disco beats. The subtleties and innuendos of Nelson's compositions give ambient music a new meaning.

Very little happens in Pan American's Quiet City (Kranky, 2004), but whatever happens it is a profound vision of the hidden structure of reality. The gentle polyphonic tinkling of Before, the nerve-wrecking hissing of Smallholding seem to evoke "environments" in a more or less deconstructed way, but those environments are, first and foremost, in the mind. They are moods, ambiences and, ultimately, signs. The events within those environments are modest and tidy. A dejected accordion surfaces from the rumbling lattice of Inside Elevation. A guitar weaves a naive melody in the harrowing silence of Hall and Skylight (which evolves to become the closest thing to a song). A romantic flugelhorn melody floats inside the faint minimalist pattern of Lights on Water. Mark Nelson's still nature reveals itself in a discrete, almost fearful manner. Nelson prefers pale colors, slow tempos, smooth surfaces, and hangs his paintings on unfurnished walls. is artful poetry in the nine-minute sonata of Christo in Pilsen: the guitar intones a sad theme worthy of Chris Isaak and the flugelhorn adorns it with countless variations, from simple imitation to absolute droning.

For Waiting For Chasing (2006 - Kranky, 2010) is the ultimate "domestic" album, as all pieces share one ingredient: the sound of his son's foetus as he was still in his wife's womb. The other ingredients are the predictable array of electronic and acoustic ambience, although kept as minimal as possible.

Pan American's White Bird Release (Kranky, 2009), ostensibly a sci-fi concept, abandoned the harshest aspects of Nelson's art for a calmer form of guitar ambient music that was actually reminiscent of Klaus Schulze's electronic cosmic music. Pan American