One of the more distinctive and original avant pop albums of the last few years. 2012's Melody's Echo Chamber from classically trained French multi-instrumentalist and singer Melody Prochet is a shimmering object. Made after she saw Tame Impala playing, befriended that band's Kevin Parker who helped produce this, her debut record.
It's really something quite special. It will certainly remind you of things. A fully realised Lush perhaps, Stereolab, Broadcast and as much of it is in French, Serge Gainsbourg and his collaborations with numerous female artists. You know, the stuff that hipsters like! Despite those echoes it's worthy of attention in itself, because this is incredibly confidently done.
I could easily post seven or eight tracks from here, because it's a remarkably strong record. Five songs will have to suffice and I'd urge you to listen to the rest. There's a lot of this dream pop stuff around nowadays. Deerhunter, DIIV, Beach Fossils, Real Estate and Sunflower Bean all mine similar territory. Perhaps it chimes with the tenor of the times that music is less immediately engaged than it might once have been as we float on in our own atomised states. It strikes me as a loss in many respects that we now exist in such disengaged times but has resulted in no end of great music.
Penultimate track here is entitled Snowcapped Andes Crash and presumably concerns itself with the famous incident where plane crash survivors ate fellow passenger's bodies. You wouldn't know it from the mood of the piece though. It's very much an album that leaves you to draw your own conclusions.
Be Proud of Your Kids is a wonderful way to sign off, backed by a child's voice gabbling nonsense. Backed with wonderful Sixties psychedelicisms, and backwards Ringo drumming things are brought masterfully to a resolution and you're tempted to just go back and listen to the whole damn thing again. A great little record.
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