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...according to our Brett on Thu 28 Oct, 2010.
I'd love to tell you all about Jefre Cantu-Ledesma while I'm getting a feel for his record but I can't because the internet's broken on this bloody computer. Ant's come to the rescue with a nugget of information about the vinyl: it comes with a bonus CD of extra cuts strapped to it. Oh hang on, everyone's chiming in now and I've now learned that he's in Tarentel. My guess is that this slab of oft-noisy ambience was made via guitars and effects, because it's particularly reminiscent of the likes of Tim Hecker, Windy & Carl and My Bloody Valentine, both in texture and in the fact that amidst the maelstrom of rumbles, feedback and reverberations there's an ever-present grace and beauty to it, shimmering just below the surface.
* New album from founder member of Tarentel and The Alps – Jefre Cantu-Ledesma.
* Features layered shoegaze/ambient/drone works somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Catherine Wheel.
* Please note that the limited vinyl edition comes with a 50 minute bonus CD album featuring some of Jefre Cantu-
Ledesma’s original material reworked by Type label head John ‘Xela’ Twells.
* As a member of San Francisco legends Tarentel and Type’s premier astral travellers The Alps, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is
hardly a new addition to the label, so it’s hard to believe that ‘Love Is A Stream’ is his first Type solo album. Previously
releasing on Arbor, Spekk and his own Root Strata imprint, this latest album marks his journey into the beautifully
cacophonous world of dream pop.
* Shoegaze music has been much maligned in recent years, probably due to its rebirth and subsequent explosion of
popularity (which gave rise to hundreds of young bands aping the over twenty-year-old sound). However it was only a
fragment of the genre that these bands attempted to re-create, and on ‘Love Is A Stream’ Cantu, instead of focusing on
tired weeping melancholy ballads, focuses solely on expansive, almost noise-ridden hopefulness. This is the kind of
noise we fell in love with when My Bloody Valentine blew our ear drums performing ‘Loveless’, or the kind of harmonic
excess we heard on hundredth listen to Catherine Wheel’s ‘Ferment’, but taken into deeper, more abstract realms.
* ‘Love Is A Stream’ is dedicated to love itself, and the dreamy, shimmering blown-out textures might at first sound like
white noise before they ultimately give way to blissful harmony and hidden melody. Underneath the grit and growl are
hidden guitar parts, synthesizer drones and even vocals (provided by Lisa McGee, John Twells and Maxwell August
Croy) that succeed in swelling the dense, tape-saturated songs to heady new heights and belie any influences they might
have. On each listen the mind strips away another layer of dust and bones to reveal haunting and deeply moving beauty.
1. Stained Glass Body 2. Star Garden 3. Loving Love 4. Where I End & You Begin 5. Body Within Body 6.
Where You End & I Begin 7. Orbiting Love 8. White Dwarf Butterfly 9. Womb Night 10. River Like Spine 11. Wild Moon
And Sea 12. Mirrors Death
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Norman Records,
Unit 20, Croydon House,
Croydon Street,
Leeds,
LS11 9RT, UK.
Tel/fax: (+44) 0113 245 4399
Email: phil@normanrecords.com
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