With Mexican Summer, Leo Niño isn’t introducing himself through just one sound. The Mexican-American artist uses the album to bring together psychedelic alternative rock, indie, shoegaze, and flashes of Latin influence, creating a debut project that feels varied without losing the identity running through it.
Behind Leo Niño is 24-year-old songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Wyatt Reichart. Now based in Asheville, North Carolina, Reichart primarily builds his music around guitar and vocals, while also playing drums and piano. His influences span genres and eras, and that open-minded approach is evident throughout Mexican Summer.
Tracks like “Selective Hearing,” “What I Seem To Be,” and “Swan Dive” are particularly strong examples of the wider world Leo Niño is creating.
Rather than relying on one obvious formula, the album gives its songs room to develop their own personalities. “Selective Hearing” opens up another side of Leo Niño’s alternative sound, while “What I Seem To Be” continues the journey through the record. Later, “Swan Dive” adds another piece to the album before its closing stretch. Without needing every song to tell the same story or occupy the same musical space, they help Mexican Summer feel like a full project rather than simply a collection of singles.
Elsewhere, titles including “Tell Me (Again),” “Is That What You Are?,” “Like A Dog,” “All I Want Is Everything” and “Daisy” add to an album that Reichart intentionally wanted to feel eclectic while still belonging to one cohesive world.
At the center of that world is the title track, “Mexican Summer.”
The wider project draws heavily from Reichart’s experiences growing up Mexican American in the South and the summers he spent visiting family in Mexico. Those memories don’t just influence the concept either. Clips recorded during family parties in Mexico were incorporated into some of the songs, allowing pieces of those real experiences to live inside the record.
There is also plenty of experience behind Leo Niño already. Reichart has performed around 100 shows with his band, recorded in professional studios, worked with Grammy-nominated engineers, and shared bills with touring acts including Oso Oso and Mustard Service. His first release under the Leo Niño name also picked up around 25,000 streams early in its release.
Mexican Summer, however, feels like an opportunity to understand the artist beyond any individual song.
The project brings nostalgic psychedelia together with the rawer edges of alternative rock, shoegaze and bedroom experimentation. It reflects Reichart’s Mexican-American background without making that the only defining feature of his music, while tracks like “Selective Hearing,” “What I Seem To Be” and “Swan Dive” demonstrate just how much room there is within the Leo Niño sound.
For an artist still at the beginning of this particular project, that’s what makes Mexican Summer such an interesting introduction. Leo Niño isn’t narrowing down what his music can be. He’s widening the possibilities.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7A7pvr5xsCTO3Ha2TnyPVQ?si=0IzmnoHkRGuiHNt329E9pQ
