If chillwave sounded like warped copies of old soft-rock and synth-pop tapes, then Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s “Pale Flower” is the sound of a warped, nearly wrecked, copy of a chillwave tape. Or in the words of its creator; the music explores ways of “conveying memory in music without being sentimental”. Sentimental or not, “Pale Flower” is like trying to adjust the knobs on an old transistor radio broadcasting a memory of a memory of a memory of a song that probably never existed in the first place.
Mexican Summer, no strangers to forward-thinking nostalgia-obsessive music, is wisely releasing A Year With 13 Moons, the follow-up to 2010’s Love Is A Stream. Cantu-Ledesma has been releasing a steady stream of music since 1996, collaborating with Grouper’s Liz Harris, and also the founder of Root Strata, a record label that released music from Oneothrix Point Never amongst others. While I haven’t heard his previous work, “Pale Flower” is an invite to explore more from one of ambient music’s best kept secrets.
