Mint Field world tour closes with San Diego show

March 30, 2018 6:05 PM PT

When PACIFIC last caught up with Mint Field, the band had just been asked to play 2016’s Coachella festival. The self-described purveyors of “noise pop shoegaze from Tijuana” had a single EP, Primeras Salidas, to their name and were still playing with original bassist Andrés Corella.

In the two years since, Mint Field’s duo of Amor Amezcua and Estrella Sánchez toured the world, became proficient on a slew of new instruments, and carefully constructed their February-released full-length debut, Pasar de las Luces.

The 13-song collection seamlessly synthesizes tracks that were created over many years, and balances the pair’s unique blend of abstract noise, expansive pop, and fuzzed-out post rock.

And while the pair has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the Tijuana scene through participation in events like the Musica en el Patio (MEEP) series, Sánchez now lives in Mexico City. So the longtime friends and band mates are currently experimenting with new ways to create as they compile new tracks for the follow-up to Pasar de las Luces.

Sánchez and Amezcua recently told PACIFC about it all ahead of their tour-closing stop at Blonde on Sunday.

PACIFIC: Seems like it’s been quite the journey to make this album.

Sánchez: You can’t even imagine. Some of the songs were super old. Some were two years old. And some are only six months old and came out in the studio. There is a long history with this record — which is weird, but nice at the same time. It was a process for us.

Yet it seems so seamlessly sequenced. Going in did you know where all of the different puzzle pieces were going to fit?

Amezcua: We had a small idea. But we wanted to record it first, then listen to it. We knew how we wanted to open and close it. For the rest, we waited until we had the final mixes.

Sánchez: But the goal was to make it so people would hear it without a pause. We wanted people to listen to it from beginning to end. That was our main goal.

Do you play it all the way through live?

Sánchez: We mix it. But we tried to do it that way. We did it that way for our record release show in Mexico City. And it worked. But I feel like some of the songs on the record are super contemplative, slow, and sometimes sad.

Amezcua: I think our show is stronger, more of a rock show, so we try to make it like that. It’s more fun if we mix it.

Are you both still living in Tijuana?

Sánchez: Amor still does. I live in Mexico City. But we’re really lucky because the flights from Mexico to Tijuana are super cheap. So we go super often. And we are just now planning a week when we get off of tour to go in and record some more stuff that we have. We’re still trying to figure that all out. It’s only been like a semester’s time since we’ve lived in separate places.

What’s next?

Sánchez: We’d really like to put out an album each year. That’s the goal. So I hope we have enough songs to record this summer. Just like we did last year. I like bands that always have music out. But we’re always working on some songs and ideas. And hopefully, it won’t take us as long to get another record out this time.