Pan•American
Quiet City

When the city feels heavy eyelids, when it drinks the last glass of water from the gutters, when it removes the store lights from its earlobes and yawns from the rooftops. When it lies down half-dressed in its stone bed.

It takes talent to whisper lullabies. It takes a warm breath and a sense for pauses, you need eyes that adapt to darkness, a brain predisposed to drowsiness, a suitable jaw articulation and a restless heart; yes, especially a restless heart.

The sleepwalking mumbled arpeggios, the lazy weave of the fabula, the bloodless and sparse post-modernism of Labradford: Mark Nelson is the ultimate minstrel of induced lethargy.

And the rhythm? Explored with the first records of Pan•American; side-project in evening attire, electronics from a night club lined with downtempo and occasional dub.

Then suddenly "Quiet City". The samplers descend from the dance floor and stretch across the historic center streets among neon loops, diffuse vapors, and some glitch bubble. Pieces that watch the bell towers like caring mothers, that brush the squares like young lovers, that whisper from the portals like insinuating romances. Pieces like eyes that keep vigil, hands that caress, words that calm.

It takes talent to whisper lullabies. It takes a warm breath and a sense for pauses, you need eyes that adapt to darkness, a brain predisposed to drowsiness, a suitable jaw articulation, and a voice like a rasp; yes, especially a voice like a rasp.

A voice like Mark Nelson's; fragmentary, salty, footnoted. Used only as an incisive cameo.

The city is quiet. Watched over by the eyelashes of digital refinements that slit a drizzle of tabla, caressed by the hands of discreet guitar playfulness with a wind-blown trumpet and an accordion with moist eyes, sedated by the words of a hypnotic bass that mutters in dissonance with fleeting bold percussion.

The city sleeps now. Wrapped in a soft ambient veil quilted with psychedelic fantasies.

It takes talent to whisper lullabies. Above all, it takes a restless heart and a voice like a rasp, the heart and voice of someone who never rests and therefore understands the value of deep sleep.