Three folky tracks burned beyond recognition by three absolute masters of the beats: Damian Schwartz, Mwëslee and Charles Trees. All comes on a very limited transparent vinyl. And there's some auto-tune on there, too!
Yuri Mendez Jr. has an amazing gift for composing good songs. He's proven so over the years, with albums filled with carefully crafted, solid songs. Earlier this year he released “Old Goodbyes”, an intimate eight-tracker recorded with the band he has been playing with for the last two years, which got 4 out of 5 stars in the British Q magazine, quite a feat for a Spanish indie band. And now it's time for the remixes.
And what remixes they are. All three producers burned the chosen tunes beyond recognition, leaving little more than the vocal tracks and hints of the melodies. Damian Schwartz takes “Ribbon” to slo-mo house territory with a minimal and hypnotising cadence and well-placed vocal snippets. This remix is closer to the sound of Four Tet or Floating Points than his releases in labels like Oslo. Spanish beat magician Mwëslee stays closer to the original melody of the stunning “Evangeline” but he turns the track into an eighties-like synth piece, with some auto-tune thrown in for good measure. Yes, that's right, auto-tune. Charles Trees is a name you should watch out for. Coming from Ann Arbor, he remixes not one but two tracks: first off, he pushes the aforementioned “Evangeline” towards an eerie, dark area, where the original melancholy turns into downright desperation. The same goes for “Old Goodbyes”, although here a bit of spooky drum'n'bass comes peeping around the corner. Now we don't know, or rather, we don't give a rodent's behind about styles or genres, but this is the sound we imagine when we hear people speak of “witch house”.
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Pajaro Sunrise is León-born Yuri Méndez. Ester Rodriguez, Jesus Montes and Sebastian Giudice from the Amigos Imaginarios, and Javier Jimenez and Pedro López from the Barrunto Bellota Band have all recorded with him, and are in fact no longer “just” the musicians who accompany him live; they have become Pajaro Sunrise.
In addition to recording his own albums, Yuri has also flexed his muscles as a producer for other artists, and his songs can be found on several soundtracks (films like “Missing Lynx” and TV series like “Castle”), as well as in advertising campaigns, which doesn’t make his music better, but we like it.
www.pajarosunrise.com
released September 5, 2011