With music initially conceptualized for film usage in 2014, Minneapolis musician Chris Bartels (who also writes as Elskavon, Bora York, Blurstem, Glass Echoes) was having too much fun to not explore things a bit further, eventually playing engaging live sets and releasing music under Anthem Falls (Anthem Falls Selects). The indie blogosphere started taking notice, with Indie Shuffle calling it “fantastic,” and The Music Ninja saying a song “exhibits the best traits of what synth-driven pop can accomplish.” I Heart Moosiq may have summed the music up best with their description “chillwavey intoxication.” After several years of ups and downs, Bartels figured 2020’s Dust Shoes, an LP featuring the likes of Cory Wong, BlankFor.ms & Ben Noble, a good time to call it quits on the project - a send off. But 2023 has seen a resurgence in the project, with Bartels releasing Mixtape, a follow-up EP to Hi-Fi Cali’s Love is a Wave, both releases thick with sun-drenched synth line hooks and tongue-in-cheek hopeless romantic stories. The title track tells the story of someone so intensely music-obsessed that they can only fathom that they were dumped because they must have not picked the perfect tracklist on their mixtape gift. The delusion… And yet, for us music fans who would agree that music is life, can we not relate?