- Last year, Melody Prochet was involved in a serious accident which lead to her experiencing a brain aneurysm and broken vertebrae which hospitalised her for several months. Given how uncertain her future looked only a year ago, it’s a relief that 2018 brings us the sophomore Melody’s Echo Chamber album, Bon Voyage. On her debut record, Melody collaborated with Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker. Interestingly, on Bon Voyage, Melody collaborates with a band who influenced Parker – Swedish psychedelic rock band, Dungen.
The first track on the album, Cross My Heart, offers an immediate introduction to what the Dungen collaboration means for the sound. The band’s frontman, Gustav Ejstes plays organ, while Reine Fiske contributes guitar, bass, percussion, violins and mellotron. Dungen collaborator Erik Lundin plays the flute, and Fredrik Swahn of the band The Amazing -which shares Dungen members- contributes with a memorable harpsichord mellotron introduction to the track. Melody plays drums and violin. This should give you an indication of how maximalist this album is, and that’s before you even get to Melody’s dreamy vocals.
If the interesting instrumental compositions weren’t enough, the secondary vocals on this album range from beat-boxing on Cross My Heart to whistling on Breathe In, Breathe Out, to experimentation with auto-tune on Desert Horse. On first listen, the more unconventional parts, like the auto-tune on Desert Horse, can be a bit challenging, but with repeat listens, it becomes clear that weird and wonderful go hand-in-hand on this project.
Var Har Du Vart offers a brief respite from the more challenging first few tracks, focusing on layered vocals, and instrumentally, only boasting an acoustic guitar. Get your rest while you can though, Quand les larmes d'un ange font danser la neige (which roughly translates to ‘when the tears of an angel dance on the snow’) is a striking return to the more maximalist approach with plenty of layering taking place. The track contains a bizarre spoken word interlude from Pond frontman Nicolas Allbrook, in which he proclaims “I just wanna shit all over myself when I die” and “be declared brain dead in the Vatican”. A mellotron which sounds like it could have been dragged straight out of a King Crimson song stands out in the climax of the track.
The final two songs of the album, Visions of Someone Special, On A Wall Of Reflection and Shirim are closer to the dream pop style one might expect from Melody. Visions of Someone Special is mostly sung in French which is a pleasant touch, as French is a language that lends itself quite nicely to dream pop. Shirim was initially released in 2014 and finds itself somewhere between the style of Bon Voyage and the dreamier sound of her debut record. The song contains an oscillating rhythm section and Melody’s best vocal performance on the record before evaporating into a reverb-laden guitar solo which concludes the album.
If there was one major issue with Melody Echo Chamber’s debut record, it’s that the Kevin Parker collaboration really prevented it from having its own, truly original sound. While it would be naïve to not give Parker credit for where Prochet stands as an artist today, it’s fantastic that Melody has been able to move away from the conventional style of neo-psychedelia which has oversaturated music this decade. The result is a sound that is is truly memorable and unique, packing into thirty-three minutes what other records would fail to no matter how long they tried.
- Jack Jones.