When Jefre Cantu-Ledesma released 2010’s Love is a Stream the San Francisco soundscaper turned more than a few heads masterfully weaving electronic shoegaze bliss with screaming white-noise guitar heroics. Since then Cantu-Ledesma has released a barrage of limited releases but he’s now returned to offer what’s being called a proper Love is a Stream companion piece A Year With 13 Moons.
At first Cantu-Ledesma’s Mexican Summer debut seems like he’s picking up right where he left off hitting you full on with a torrential downpour of gliding electronic ambience vintage dream-pop melodies and of course that face-melting guitar work. Soon however the album takes an abrupt left turn.
Ditching his epic MO Cantu-Ledesma descends into a series of short-form pieces rarely breaking the two-minute mark and sadly offering little emotional payoff. Often the songs feel like nothing but sketchbook ideas where the guitarwork is repeatedly scrapped altogether in favour of abstract noise. And when the guitar is there it has a weird (and kinda played-out) way of sounding like a modern rehash of what you heard on decades-old Seefeel or Durutti Column records.
It all turns A Year With 13 Moons into quite the fractured listening experience and one that’s hard to embrace.
