Oftentimes, when we think of shoegaze, the image that comes to mind is of four or five young European (English) or American men huddled over a sea of guitar pedals and synthesizers. Although the genre has seen a moderately steady revival in the past decade, it was delightfully surprising to see this particular debut pop up on my radar. At surface level, the most surprising thing about Mint Field is, of course, the two young women on stage: Estrella Sanchez and Amor Amezcua. (Surprising both because women are largely absent from the genre, and even more so that the duo hails from Tijuana.)
In a feat that’s more indicative of the access afforded to outsiders by the internet than of anything else, Pasar de Luces is both thoroughly steeped in shoegaze conventions and entirely fresh, presenting a more boisterous wall of sound than many of their present-day contemporaries (Cigarettes After Sex, for instance). Mint Field’s debut record relies less on catchy hooks to pull us in, and more on sparse, lumbering sonic mountains, enveloping the listener in a distinctly dream-like atmosphere.
