Echodrone - Bon Voyage (Review)

Ambient, San Francisco 4-piece, Echodrone, deliver some impressive sonic textures and captivating dynamics on their third studio full length, Bon Voyage. From opening track, ‘Under an Impressive Sky’, the tone is set for an outing which is at once subdued, yet rife with bubbling tension. Mellow, at-times bluesy guitar work and bien cuit drumming - alongside some pretty vocal melodies - help the tracks sparkle just enough to stand tall against their peers.

Echodrone have fine-tuned the formula of starting small and taking a track’s humble beginnings as far as they can possibly be stretched. In some ways, they avoid the shortcomings of influence Spiritualized by striking that illusive balance between elegant simplicity and monotony Jason Pierce himself wasn’t always able to find. Swirling ‘Hypnogogic’ builds from a tiny spark of a riff into a full, hair-raising assault on emotions, while ‘Cold Snap’ is the album’s stunning highpoint with its “So cold without you” refrain and male-female harmony. 

Clocking in at just 6 tracks and 35 minutes, Bon Voyage offers enough tricks to keep listeners engrossed, but by sprawling closer ‘Constant’, we’re left yearning for a different dynamic approach to the small-big trajectory path of virtually every track which precedes it. The Curve-esque drive of ‘Pure Nickel’, and delicate, near-acoustic stylings of ‘Infinite Arms’ show two different sides to the band which could easily have been explored on a more comprehensive set of songs. Nonetheless, Bon Voyage is the pleasant sound of a now-experienced band sticking to what they know best and doing a damn good job of it.

Bon Voyage is out June 26.

Soundtrack Picks

Mysterious Skin / O.S.T

Independent filmmaker, Gregg Arraki, has always served up delicious platters of shoegaze confection to accompany his revolutionary teen-angst films. Here he employs the services of Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie and avant-garde composer, Harold Budd to realise a fully original soundtrack. The resulting record is littered with beautifully-aching melodies which compound an already touching cinematic experience.

Touch / O.S.T

Unlike Robin Guthrie, Dave Grohl is probably not the first name one might associate with dream-pop. He brings along just enough Foo aggression on this predominantly instrumental set to dampen the shock. Veruca Salt frontwoman and then love interest, Louise Post, features on the ethereal title track and 'Saints in Love'. Released in 1997, Touch (the film) bombed critically and commercially, but the soundtrack remains a fan favourite.

Lost in Translation / O.S.T

This well-received film and its accompanying soundtrack really brought 90s alt-rock legend Kevin Shields back to mainstream attention before a 2007 My Bloody Valentine reunion and nu-gaze explosion. Shields even scored a BAFTA nomination for contribution to film score. Other big names to feature include fuzz pioneers The Jesus & Mary Chain, and french duo, Air.

The Doom Generation / O.S.T

 

Araki's The Doom Generation (1995) is arguably his most influential work. It's got that defining blend of drug-fueled, 90s, teen rebellion coupled with tantalisingly original quips and glossy, stylised violence. The soundtrack provides the perfect backdrop to all of the action and features some true shoegaze gems of the time (from Lush, Slowdive, Medicine et al.). Aside from a few inexplicable omissions from the film (such as Nine Inch Nails track 'Heresy') for the inclusion of some unlistenable odd-balls, the album serves as a nice introduction to the genre. See also the original soundtrack to Nowhere (1997).

The Limits of Control / O.S.T

Widely-decorated Japanese noise trio, Boris, welcomely appear five times on this 2009 soundtrack. When their landmark album Pink dropped in 2006, many were surprised at the adventurous turn the alternative-metal band had taken. The tracks here (including My Bloody Valentine-tinged 'Farewell' from Pink) illustrate the band at their atmospheric peak. LCD Soundsystem and Bad Rabbit deliver more highlights among some Spanish folk acapellas and acoustics.

O. Children - Apnea (First Impressions)

For better or for worse, goth music and aesthetics have come a long way since the influential movement of the 80s. The downside to all of this is the gross, Manson-esque caricaturisation of what once started out as a more refined and comparatively eloquent style of music and dress. Joy Division, Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Cure were some of the first, and O. Children continue in this dark but tastefully melodic, post-punk vein. On second album, Apnea, the band revisit the melancholic meanderings of their first with the addition of more lush melodies and an impressive, new-found versatility.

There has always been a certain welcome authenticity to frontman Tobi O'Kandi's bass-baritone delivery; this is the booming sound of a 6-foot-something giant who is every part the menacing presence his vocals might suggest. While the Ian Curtis's and Nick Cave's of the day may also have favoured the deeper, richer tones in their respective bodies of work, O'Kandi opens his mouth in conversation and we immediately understand that his way of singing is not merely a stylistic choice.

Colourful riffs dance beautifully in front of Disintegration-era Cure bass and synths on tracks 'Red Like Fire' and the stunning single 'Chimera', but the band also succeed at crossing over into lighter territory on pop-rock romp, 'PT Cruiser' and 'Yours For You', which would not sound out of place on either of The Horrors' last two albums. While O. Children's self-titled debut was a curious - if not unidimensional - record which showed great promise, the band have truly made strides with Apnea and set a lofty benchmark for future releases in the process.

Garbage: 'Felt'

Wisconson alt-rock outfit, Garbage, have never been afraid of infusing their gritty tunes with any style from industrial to trip-hop, noise-pop or stadium-rock. Echoes of the metronomic Loveless by My Bloody Valentine stirred beneath the surface on 'Supervixen' (off Garbage's 1995 debut) and others, but it wasn't until this year's Not Your Kind of People that Garbage decided to drop a straight shoegaze track.

Here it is:

SPC ECO - You Tell Me (First Impressions)

Dean Garcia of Curve fame has a current project in motion. His most recent incarnation is known as SPC ECO and features daughter, Rose Berlin, on vocals. Berlin has more than four years' recording experience under her belt - in fact, she's been around long enough for myself to be familiar with her early MySpace recordings. That experience shines through on SPC ECO's third record, You Tell Me, but not so heavily as her studio-veteran father's.

The sound is unmistakebly Dean Garcia: thick, bouncy basslines with subtley biting guitar-work over sleepy - and ocassional - trip-hop beats. There is no doubt that Berlin's vocals are at least in part owing to Curve's Toni Halliday, but she lacks the depth and richness of Halliday's delivery, instead resting on smoothness and sensuality. On tracks such as 'Big Fat World' she comes into her own, but this can be put down to the lighter production values which can otherwise feel polarising on the album.

The fact that 'Lef It Out' samples Curve's own 'Something Familiar' is perplexingly self-referrential, but perhaps more importantly indicative of how Toni Halliday's presence could instantly have turned this record into another Curve one. Is this a bad thing? Only if you are willing to cede that Curve's output felt decidedly less-inspired towards the end of the duo's often tumultuous working relationship.  

While there is nothing distinctly sub-par about this album, it ultimately does have the feel of Dean Garcia turning all the knobs and pulling all the strings behind a new lead singer and set of willing studio musicians. A lack of energy drives the album into chillout territory, but the melodies so often fall flat and lack the lift or beauty (seen on 'Fall a Million Ways') to sustain the attempted, laid-back vibe without things becoming a little too pedestrian. Here's hoping Rose Berlin brings some of her own personality to the table on future releases.