-=- SHGZ -=- * Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal * ARTIST..: Mint Field ALBUM...: Pasar De Las Luces GENRE...: Indie STYLE...: Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Noise Pop, Post-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia YEAR....: 2018 LABEL...: Innovative Leisure COUNTRY.: Mexico FORMED..: Tijuana, Baja California, 2014 ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0 BITRATE.: 256 kbps avg QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo SOURCE..: CD TRACKS..: 13 SIZE....: 118.64 MB URL..: http://www.facebook.com/mintfieldband http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/mint-field - TRACKLIST 1 El Parque Parecφa No Tener Fin 3:41 2 Ojos En El Carro 5:28 3 Ciudad SatΘlite 6:16 4 Temporada De Jacarandas 5:42 5 Quiero Oto±o De Nuevo 4:51 6 Cambios Del Pasar 3:26 7 Viceversa 3:45 8 Nostalgia 2:08 9 Bo÷tes Void 6:16 10 Nada Es Estßtico Y Evoluciona 6:32 11 Club De Chicas 5:19 12 Para Gali 4:43 13 Pßrpados Morados 6:06 Total Playtime: 64:13 About: Originally from Tijuana, based in Mexico City. Guided by lead signer Estrella del Sol in vocal and guitar duties, Sebastian Neyra in the bass and Callum Brown in drums. The band explores the nostalgia and the melancholy of the daily life with loud guitars and vocals that give life to a unique and supernatural shoegaze. * Even though the Mexican border-town of Tijuana has a stigmatized history it has managed to produce many vibrant and unique artists. None are quite like Mint Field. Comprised of 21-year-olds Estrella del Sol Sanchez and Amor Amezcua, Mint Field's sound is organic, spacious, and inhabited by specters that lurk behind rhythms, where Estrella's angelic voice evokes a supernatural world of beauty and melancholy. Their new record, Pasar De Las Luces, first for LA-based Innovative Leisure Records, is "a compilation of our lives from two years ago to now" says the band. Since recording an initial EP in 2015 in their hometown of Tijuana, Mint Field have played Coachella, SXSW and have extensively toured the US and Mexico. In the summer of 2017 the band traveled to Detroit to record with producer Christopher Koltay. "We had a much clearer idea of what we wanted and we had the tools to make it. When we recorded [our debut EP] Primeras Salidas, it was a homemade album and we didn't know what we were doing." This time, they managed to channel their inspirations and influences to transmit sentiments of profound sorrow, nostalgia and immaculate beauty...revisiting sounds from the past to make them contemporary. Mint Field's vision comes alive on Pasar De Las Luces 's 13 immaculate tracks that nod to everything from dream pop to fuzz-saturated shoegaze. Album opener "El Parque Parecφa No Tener Fin," is a melodic number with haunting melodic lines where we can appreciate their post-punk tendencies. "Ciudad SatΘlite" has woven harmonies and crescendos that detonate into a flurry of feelings anchored by a dramatic bassline. "Quiero Oto±o De Nuevo" goes full krautrock and is like an introverted, reflective and delicate Neu!. "Cambios Del Pasar" borrows the distorted and imperfect guitar sounds of '90s indie bands like Yo Lat Tengo. "Nada Es Estßtico y Evoluciona" develops from minimalism into a silent scream and "Club De Chicas" is probably the peppiest song of the bunch. The whole record has a unique sound that makes it stand apart from projects by contemporaries. While deceptively young themselves, Sanchez and Amezcua not only show the potential of influencing even younger fans, but of also defining themselves as stand alone voices in emotional music. Although they have a foot in the past, they never let themselves get caught by nostalgia; they reinterpret the best of what the past has to offer in order to better express their feeling in the present. It's a timeless quality that will surely take them far into the future. * The Tijuana duo announce their arrival with an impressive and immersive debut Mexican duo Mint Field have been building a following and nurturing the hype gently for a couple of years now, and have finally emerged with a finely crafted, sonically beautiful debut album. Pasar de las Luces draws inspiration from across the post-rock/shoegaze spectrum of guitar music and while never shy of borrowing from the playbook of its parent albums, it never - unlike so much similar music - descends into pastiche. Estrella Sanchez's ethereal, echoing vocals' interplay with Amor Amezcua's woozy synth soundscapes is a near-constant across the album, helping to tie the work together thematically into a coherent, immersive whole. That said, individual tracks tend to nestle into different categories and moods. Opener El Parque Parecφa No Tener Fin is more than a little reminiscent of Bowie's Blackstar, while the bass riff on Ciudad SatΘlite is a subtler, more interesting cousin to Explosions in the Sky. The motorik drumbeat which drives Quiero Oto±o de Nuevo is a rare moment of high tempo and in turn an album highlight. The midsection of the album blends into a beautiful, melancholy soundscape which peaks in the loud/quiet/loud Bo"tes Void, but begins to drag by the time Club de Chicas roars into life, all soaring feedback and rapid drumming. It's a cathartic release from the tension built up over the preceding few tracks. Pasar de las Luces is over an hour in length, immersive and layered enough to justify a long run time. A thoughtful and aurally beautiful album. * Pasar de las Luces is the first full-length from Mint Field, a Mexican duo who play a gloriously downcast form of dream pop. Estrella Sanchez and Amor Amezcua were barely in their twenties when they recorded the album, and their music brilliantly channels the frustration, hopelessness, and sorrow of their young adult years. Their songs are spacious and cloudy, with chiming guitars bathed in effects and longing, angelic vocals. The lyrics appear to be sung entirely in Spanish, but it's hard to discern if Sanchez is even singing words most of the time; vocals appear intermittently when they need to, and even then, they seem to hover on the edge of consciousness. This seems to be more about pure expression than direct communication. The duo's songs typically stretch out to five or six minutes each, unfolding at their own pace rather than conforming to traditional song structures. However, they never seem like they're meandering, and as abstract as they are, they're still quite accessible. They always seem to arrive somewhere, and when they do pile on the noisy guitar effects, it's always at the right moment. While most of the songs are slow and brooding, the uptempo "Quiero Oto±o de Nuevo" is a brisk homage to Neu!, with Sanchez's vocals disappearing under the breezy Motorik rhythm. The dramatic high point of the album is "Club de Chicas," which erupts into a furious storm early on, only to break down and venture into a spiral of despair. This continues with the final two songs, concluding with "Pßrpados Morados," which brings to mind Cranes and Slowdive, but sounds far more dejected and lost. Mint Field's gloominess is very real and relatable, and their debut is a truly remarkable work of art. * Composed by 21-year-olds Estrella Sanches (vocals and guitar) and Amor Amezcua (drums and synths), Mint Field's De Las Luces is one not to be missed. Sitting in a bus at 2am yearning to get home after a long day of exhaustive travelling, my travel companion is this record - the musical form of a wistful look out the window with fast-moving lights flashing past my eyes. De Las Luces is the angelic muse from which the creative senses blossom, a record that can awaken the sleeping writer inside of each and every single one of us - the one who only comes out in the wee hours of the night. In "El Parque Parecφa No Tener Fin", a reverberated guitar, dry drumbeat and a subtle yet omnipresent bassline come together to open a box of musical emotions with nostalgia-inducing sounds and melodies. This box is only closed after the ethereal musicality of "Pßrpados Morados", the last song on this fine album. If melancholy had a soundtrack, it would be Mint Field's De Las Luces. -=- SHGZ -=- -=-=-==-=-=- Shoegaze is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the late 80s. The genre is very difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and textural distortion that create a tranquil, opaque feeling. ---==--==---