Mint Field is the work of Estrella del Sol Sánchez. She plays guitar and sings, and on this, her second record, she has added a rhythm section of bassist Sebastian Neyra and drummer Callum Brown. They are apparently based in Mexico City.
The music that Ms. Sánchez makes is a fun blend of dream pop, shoegaze, slowcore, and krautrock. She takes a bunch of different things and mixes them up nicely. (And, a side note, if you put "Estrella del Sol" into Google Translate, it will tell you that her name means "Star Sun", which is, i have to admit, pretty cool.)
The record starts with her voice, breathy, singing along to a strummed guitar. Then the drums come in, the bass thunks and it gets a little noisy. Is that a sax i hear? Cuida tus pasos moves along with mostly wordless singing, and then ends in echo. The echo fades out, and the drums and guitar start a steady progression for Natural and then, yes, that is definitely saxophone! Something about her voice, the steady drum beat, and that occasional sax warble makes me think of the first Psychedelic Furs record. Only Sánchez's voice is far more delicate than Richard Butler's cigaretted huff. This song builds to a nice distorted frenzy, as her guitar and the drums and bass all seem about to be swallowed by feedback. Nice.
Delicadeza is next. This is a nice echoed dream pop song. The guitar seems to pick along in one layer while another soars with deep distortion. Neyra keeps a steady bass thunking as the drums tap and chime. Some of the guitar bits sound like something SIANspheric would have done in their more esoteric moments, or maybe Landing.
On Contingencia the bass is a clicking, chugging beat while her guitar soars and growls in distortion. This has a great forward movement to it, really throttling it forward. So of course they slow it down for the next tune, Aterrizar which almost jangles like mid-era R.E.M., at least until Neyra comes in with a nice groovy bass riff, and then Sánchez steps on a fuzz pedal and it gets nosily jangly. Another great tune.
Next there is a short interlude called Le hable a la ola del mar, which apparently means "i spoke to the sea waves". It's a nice interlude of strummed guitar and voice in layers.
The title track is next, and it starts with a bass part that is ... weird. It is a ticking scale, like Neyra is playing scales and clicking against the string hard with the pick. A unique sound... But then the guitar comes in and her voice soars close to Liz Fraser on this song.
Nuestro sentido starts with a slow, insistent beat. But it grows and grows into a noisy psychedelic freakout, a real roaring guitar with horns and hippies freaking out man. Maybe that is why the next tune is called Nadie te esta persiguiendo ("Nobody is chasing you") -- gotta alleviate some of the paranoia that the psychedelics caused! At any rate, this song is insanely catchy. The guitar riff and the tapped drums are just the perfect thing to bop along to. Really nice and pretty and catchy.
So of course No te caigas starts with a loud distorted intro as Sánchez channels A Place To Bury Strangers for a minute. The song slows down and moves along nicely. And then finally the record ends with Presente, a echoing dream pop tune.
Overall i am really impressed. There is a lot to like here.
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