Jefre Cantu-Ledesma ventures into a radically discombobulated new sound with a staggering first solo album in four years - a huge RIYL Huerco via Actress.
Since the turn of the millennium Jefre been instrumental in re-shaping the tone and spirit of the OG shoegaze template via his influential Root Strata imprint, his solo recordings and releases as part of Tarentel and The Alps, collaborations with Liz Harris (aka Grouper) as Raum, and a pair of albums with Félicia Atkinson for Shelter Press.
‘Poverty’, however, is a radical departure, embracing a disorienting clutch of amorphous ambient-technoid drifters that leave his more conventional roots for dust. It’s one of those albums that makes us feel like we’re tiny lumens swilled with sand and jelly in a kaleidoscope, unable to trace the endlessly morphing shapes around us. Bolstered by biorhythmic machine pulses owing to the loosest ends of experimental Techno, the music here is given to a rich flux of elusive harmony and dynamic texturing that sounds like Actress at the tail end of the heaviest session, all smoke and shimmering, rhythmic gloop.
In 11 parts he streams a particular sort of delirium from the underwater trance bliss of ‘Name Myself’ to its full-sunken closer ‘Dead Body Blues’. We get snagged on the briny post-club rip-currents and harmonic hypnagogia of ‘FA Song’, while ‘Circles’ feels like floating in water, gradually smothered by waves. He references his roots with a literal nod to Grouper on ‘Torn Ocean (For Liz)’, the sun-bleached ambient daze of ‘Shame’ and ‘nervily activated thizz of ‘Smile Shaped Bird Shit’, beside coruscating acid oddities like ‘Non-person’ and the illbient flip of the title tune - all in service of an elusive, weightless mood.
‘Poverty’ is the best we’ve heard from Jefre, a mere three decades into his career...🫠
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Jefre Cantu-Ledesma ventures into a radically discombobulated new sound with a staggering first solo album in four years - a huge RIYL Huerco via Actress.
Since the turn of the millennium Jefre been instrumental in re-shaping the tone and spirit of the OG shoegaze template via his influential Root Strata imprint, his solo recordings and releases as part of Tarentel and The Alps, collaborations with Liz Harris (aka Grouper) as Raum, and a pair of albums with Félicia Atkinson for Shelter Press.
‘Poverty’, however, is a radical departure, embracing a disorienting clutch of amorphous ambient-technoid drifters that leave his more conventional roots for dust. It’s one of those albums that makes us feel like we’re tiny lumens swilled with sand and jelly in a kaleidoscope, unable to trace the endlessly morphing shapes around us. Bolstered by biorhythmic machine pulses owing to the loosest ends of experimental Techno, the music here is given to a rich flux of elusive harmony and dynamic texturing that sounds like Actress at the tail end of the heaviest session, all smoke and shimmering, rhythmic gloop.
In 11 parts he streams a particular sort of delirium from the underwater trance bliss of ‘Name Myself’ to its full-sunken closer ‘Dead Body Blues’. We get snagged on the briny post-club rip-currents and harmonic hypnagogia of ‘FA Song’, while ‘Circles’ feels like floating in water, gradually smothered by waves. He references his roots with a literal nod to Grouper on ‘Torn Ocean (For Liz)’, the sun-bleached ambient daze of ‘Shame’ and ‘nervily activated thizz of ‘Smile Shaped Bird Shit’, beside coruscating acid oddities like ‘Non-person’ and the illbient flip of the title tune - all in service of an elusive, weightless mood.
‘Poverty’ is the best we’ve heard from Jefre, a mere three decades into his career...🫠