Mint Julep – Blinded

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Stray Fantasies, das neue Album von Mint Julep, markiert eine Vertiefung der Diskographie des Ehepaar-Duos Hollie und Keith Kenniff unter ihrem Namen Mint Julep, einem fachmännisch gepflegten Electro-Pop-Venture, das in starkem Kontrast zu den nebulösen und experimentellen Helios- und Goldmund-Werken steht, für die Keith Kenniff bekannt ist. Wo diese Projekte versuchen, der konventionellen Songform durch strukturelle, amorphe Erforschung zu trotzen, vereint Mint Julep alle Elemente mit einer beeindruckenden Songwriting-Expertise, die von der Geschicklichkeit und Vielseitigkeit seiner Schöpfer spricht.

Stray Fantasies beweist dies weiter, indem es zwölf vollständig kristallisierte, irisierende Pop-Perlen liefert, die im Zusammenspiel mit Synthesizern, pulsierenden Basslinien und druckvollem Schlagzeug schimmern. Hollies traumartiger Gesang beschwichtigt, während sie Themen wie Verletzlichkeit, Unsicherheit und andere schmerzhafte Details von Liebe und Beziehungen entfaltet.

Über die erste Single sagt Keith: „Blinded was one of the first songs that we wrote for the album and helped to serve as a baseline in shaping the tonal character of the rest of the songs. Production-wise I was listening to a lot of vaporwave/lo-fi stuff, so I was fooling around with those sorts of sounds with the synths and overall character of the mix, but in keeping with a more pop song structure. I initially laid down an idea for a track that had more layers in it and felt a bit „bigger“, but once Hollie’s lyrics and vocals took shape we thought it best to subtract a lot and keep it rather minimal. Hollie’s lyrics were quite evocative of a sort of hazy/poetic feeling, so I wanted to mirror that with the music. There’s a lot of hiss, saturation and delay, so it all feels slightly homemade and washy and not super slick or polished. We did not want to frame the lyrics in a way that made the song not seem cold or dark or brooding, but rather something that had a warmth to it; something with a sunny-ness, thoughtful and inviting.“

Um die Lücke zwischen dem Bombast des Paares und des vergleichbaren Pastorals ihrer individuellen Bemühungen zu schließen, erklärt Keith zudem: „Hollie grew up listening to a lot of industrial music and we both listened to a lot of punk but also growing up a lot in the late ’70s and ‘80s we both have a lot of pop music from the time in our blood. We both listen to a lot of IDM and electronic music as well so I feel like our music is a marriage of those different things, song elements from pop influences mixed with production from the more instrumental and experimental side of things.“