Key Tides - Bifurcasio 1: Two’s Fruitions (2024)

Key Tides is a solo project by Nicholas Mendez, a multi-instrumentalist living in Gainesville, FL. Often thinking of personal narratives, Key Tides is Mendez’s vessel for reflecting on his wavering being: the up and down; the in and out; the ebb and flow, the here nor there.

‘Bifurcasio 1’ came from a live performance concept where Mendez’s “bifurcates” his Casiotone keyboard, sending it into two switchable loops – each textured differently to complement the other. After self-releasing a triptych of EPs around the time that venues started opening post-pandemic, Mendez wanted to condense his process to perform live. Here, he combines elements of his own history into a tactile and compact format: a fuzzy starter keyboard feeding all of his favorite harmonizers, delays, and loopers. The “fruition” of these efforts was an endless stream of subdued music that spanned 10 hours in its unedited form.