by Jonah Evans (@jonahinthesnow)
Aprender a Ser: Extended by Mint Field is held up by the clear and solid bass lines that carry the song from beginning to end, as well as the hollow while graceful, floaty, and subtle vocals. The guitars are often clean and striking, with dreamy effects that draw out the echoes of the strings, tangling with Estrella Sánchez’s voice. There is a melancholic sense to their sound, and this record is shaped by the minor chords used by all instruments, the vocals, their meandering sensibilities, and the continual vocal control that imbues loneliness. The songs are patient, such as in “El mar me veía,” where the guitar and bass pluck along, waiting to climax at around 2:25, where all the instruments begin to play in unison on the downbeat and sounds like a march into the cold. This patience is the same on “Hasta el anochecer,” where the song is dominated by the soft vocals, tender bass, mild guitar volume, and the drums don’t start until 1:25 in. The amount of space they create allows the band to shift slowly between rhythms and allows time for the minor chords to settle and seep into the skin.
Aprender a Ser: Extended was recorded at the same time as the album Aprender a Ser, translated to Learn to Be. This extended record continues into that realm of learning to be. The meaning feels like learning to sit with yourself in a stillness that sometimes thwarts many people. There is a calmness to the record, with a few songs that pull away into something more assertive. The core of this learning to be is sitting still, perhaps an acceptance, on “Latido,” where music seems to sit in a timeless realm of patient existence. That track has a sparse interjecting synthesizer climbing up and down short scales, Sánchez speaking plainly in a low tone at the beginning of the track, and a never-ending shallow buzzing in the background after the first ten seconds. “Latido” gives a sense of being in outer space, floating alone, looking at the stars, looking at nothing. Her voice and interjections are restrained, tactfully mumbling, speaking low, as if she were speaking to herself, reminding herself to be. A prominent word throughout the track is “estoy” which is most often translated as “I am,” in the sense, a state of being or a temporary condition. This tracks with the nice sensation “Latido” gives— the idea of staying still, lying down, looking at the ceiling, looking at the stars outside, and simply existing.
“Hasta el anochecer” does an excellent job of reintroducing the listener to the sound of the band, and “Sensibilidad dormida” picks up the pace with a little bit of a faster drum beat, relying on the bass to walk the listener through the song, never letting up yet never feeling aggressive. “Recuerdo de los días” starts with a drum machine beat, bass playfully meandering along a scale, and guitars plucking disparately, dripping onto the song like raindrops. The bass is much more intentionally melodic, purposefully contrasting with the vocals and the guitars. It’s easy to hear all of the sounds playfully weaving in and out of each other, with a tempo that is upbeat and suggestive of needing to proceed into a proverbial future. It’s interesting that “Latido” comes after“Recuerdo de los días” because there is a clear rest after the songs ramp up to this point, building in energy. “Recuerdo de los días” is the sweet spot.
The name and emotive statement of Aprender a Ser: Extended embodies the motion of the LP. There is a contrast as well, to previous efforts. if you listen to “Temporada De Jacarandas” from Pasar de loas Luces, their full length released in 2018, the song has an agitated sensation from a sound repeated quickly, a revving synth that’s always pulsating. It’s still calm sounding, but the song is restless, and the tension is high. On Sentimiento Mundial, their 2020 LP, there’s a beautiful fast rock song with dirty guitars and a unwavering drum beat called “Contingencia”. Its movement is riffy and catchy guitars, not impatient, but a strong desire for movement that is a clear contrast of intention and sensation to Aprender a Ser: Extended.
What’s lovely is the map of this record. As the first three songs are ramping up to something, “Latido” is sitting still, and the last three songs have a sense of winding down. “Una flor sin interior” has a nice unique off your-normal-four-four-beat, then the guitars crunch up and down a shore scale. “Ve hacia la ventana” starts with a wobbly, disorienting, distorted guitar, and there is a sense that the end is coming. “El Mar me veí” culminates the sensation of the record, starting slower at the beginning of the song, a beautiful mull of Sánchez speaking low again in the middle, instruments wandering around her voice, then all the sounds rushing together after 2:30 to play mostly in unison. Circling back to the idea of being, living in a moment, there is a reminder that there is still a build-up, and there is a wind-down, but it’s all attached to the center, “Latido,” at least, this extended version seems perfectly symmetrical to me.