Biography
In Greensboro, North Carolina, the cult dream-pop revivalists Ashrae Fax centered on vocalist Renee Mendoza and guitarist Alex Chesney. Calling themselves “art kids,” the two channeled their dissatisfaction with the town’s cultural stagnation in the late ’90s into music that revived the most atmospheric and turbulent passages associated with Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The pair issued their debut album, Static Crash, themselves in 2003 as spray-painted CD-Rs that initially drew scant notice, though awareness gradually increased. A 2005 cassette reissue followed, succeeded by a 2011 vinyl edition limited to 300 copies that sold out rapidly and prompted renewed critical attention. Mexican Summer then delivered the broadest edition to date via its 2013 reissue, inaugurating a sequence of Ashrae Fax projects. That sequence continued with 2014’s Never Really Been Into It, which presented re-recorded versions of Mendoza and Chesney’s earliest material. The same year the duo reconvened for several live performances. Once Ashrae Fax dissolved, Mendoza joined the rock group Filthybird alongside her husband Brian Haran and co-founded the drone-focused trio Ama Divers with Haran and Chris Girard. She also developed a solo R&B endeavor featuring Megafaun/Gayngs’ Brad Cook as co-producer. Chesney, for his part, pursued electronic work under the name Faster Detail.
Albums
