If twee pop music mixed with lounge sounds, plenty of pseudo sci-fi effects and psychedelica seems like your kind of thing, the self-titled debut from Melody’s Echo Chamber (@mdyechochamber), the project of French musician Melody Prochet, is something suited perfectly for you.
Produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, Melody’s maiden voyage sees the singer take a collection of sweet, whimsical pop numbers and cover them with a crunchy outer coating. The scuffed distortion and rough edges around the album definitely have Parkers fingerprints on them, but his influence doesn’t seem so heavy handed that the record sounds like a Tame Impala spin off. She has her own identity, which she fleshes out continuously as the album progresses.
Whether through her use of 60′s/70′s sci-fi synth riffs and electronic effects or the way she coos in the listeners ear, theres certainly enough here to pull Prochet out of a crowd. What really works in her favour, though, is the way her sound manages to come across as more of a subtle homage to her inspirations rather than something copied and pasted from the edge of their coat tails. Taking an idea and integrating it into something larger and more organic is a subtle art, one that Melody seems to have mastered.
While Melody’s Echo Chamber has the key principle of her sound identified and clearly enjoyed the discovery, she still needs a little tweaking and more fine-tuning. Despite being a truly enjoyable record for the most part, the album does tend to peel off and lose focus from time to time. Usually, there’s a guiding hand to put the album back on track, but a firmer grip could have prevented these detours. The album tends to use a good amount of light instrumentation and feather-like melodies, and at times, this lack of weight and depth can see the song float away from itself.
Despite these issues, Miss Prochet has crafted a debut album that singles her out as an imaginative and intriguing talent. With a charismatic and undeniably cool sense of style, this could very well be the first step on a very interesting journey.