“There’s a lot of pretty bleak memories in the songs,” explains Greg Mendez of his forthcoming self-titled album on Devil Town Tapes and Forged Artifacts, “but one thing that I hope comes through is that nothing is ever fully dark.” The mood was captured by first single ‘Goodbye / Trouble’ a song we described previously as “a lo-fi pop number rooted in memories while waiting for some present transcendence.”
This balance between various states of being is central to the record, as the Philadelphia-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist explores how what has been not only continues to bubble forth into the present but actively shape it, ultimately coming to understand the self as a fluid and ever-evolving thing. Greg Mendez is therefore a self-titled album which very much warrants its title. A record which portrays its creator as he was, is and potentially could be.
Latest single ‘Maria’ recreates the immersive nature of memories with a hazy, melodic sound, representing a sonic equivalent of the kind of transportive reverie a certain thought can conjure. But within this encompassing mood is something more subversive, the very first lines calling into question the veracity of memories and our attempts to mould the truth in our favour. “Every time you say you wanna know me I get anxious,” Mendez sings with the guarded uncertainty of someone wary of opening up, “cause I would probably tell you about some dumb shit.” But despite this emotional circumspection, it’s ultimately a song as richly evocative as the memories it talks about.
Watch the video by Luke LeCount below:
Greg Mendez is out on the 5th May via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes and you can pre-order it now.
