Melody's Echo Chamber (album)

Release

Melody's Echo Chamber was released on 25 September 2012 on Fat Possum Records in the United States, 17 October on Hostess Entertainment in Japan and 5 November on Weird World Record Co in Europe. The album was originally issued on CD, LP and as a digital download, and a limited-edition reissue on cassette was released on Burger Records in the US in November 2014.

Four singles were released from Melody's Echo Chamber. "Endless Shore" was released on 17 August 2012; "I Follow You" was released on 5 September 2012; "Crystallized" was released on 18 March 2013; and "Some Time Alone, Alone" was released on 1 July 2013. "Crystallized" had previously been featured on a split 7-inch single that preceded the album's release, which included a cover of the album track "Endless Shore" by Unknown Mortal Orchestra; the single was released in the US in July 2012. The standalone digital release in 2013 featured the B-side "Je Me Perds de Vue", a song which appeared "reversed and warped" on Melody's Echo Chamber as "IsThatWhatYouSaid", and which had since been restored.

In support of the album's release in the US Melody's Echo Chamber announced a 16-date North American tour opening for The Raveonettes. The tour began on 21 September 2012 in Portland, Oregon and concluded on 12 October in San Francisco, California. The band's first ever headline show was held at Cargo in London, England on 6 November, prior to a 14-date French and UK tour that took place from 8 December 2012 to 5 March 2013. A full European tour with Tame Impala subsequently took place over an eight-month period from April to December 2013 and included performances at various festivals, including Printemps de Bourges in France, Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, Primavera Sound in Portugal and Spain, and All Tomorrow's Parties in England.

Reception

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Melody's Echo Chamber received an average score of 79, based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". AllMusic reviewer Tim Sendra praised Melody Prochet's "lovely singing and evocative songwriting" and Kevin Parker's "inspired production", writing that "the perfect balance the duo strikes between pop and art makes Melody's Echo Chamber a rather stunning debut." Sendra awarded the album a four-out-of-five star rating. In a largely positive review for Consequence of Sound Frank Mojica said that "the album is akin to an Inception-style dream within a dream, where there's a risk of never waking, instead remaining trapped in limbo. While some albums evoke a dream-like state, Melody's Echo Chamber ensnares the listener into its elegant wilderness, not wanting to let go". Mojica drew comparisons between the album's material and releases from Air and M83, and awarded it a C+ rating.

Writing for DIY, Dean Lucas summarised Melody's Echo Chamber as "sophisticated yet uncomplicated, misty yet vibrant, luxurious yet disquieting … [it] is a lovely record full of dualities. It is not a full-blown acid-trip that will open the doors of perception in one's psyche; it is a chronicle of dark reminiscences of heartbreak". Lucas also praised Parker's production, though wrote that "[Parker's] degree of influence could easily be overstated, as it's not the song writing that shows his presence; it's merely the palette used to create Prochet's effort … Prochet merely uses Parker's colours to paint an entirely different picture". He rated the album seven out of ten. In a 9-out-of-10 review for Drowned in Sound Dom Gourlay said that "while there are comparisons to be made with artists of [shoegazing] both old and new, Melody's Echo Chamber has much more to offer than being a mere revisionist exercise for people still mourning the demise of 1991." Gourlay was also favourable towards Parker's production, noting similarities to Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, and added that "the future possibilities for [Prochet] and Melody's Echo Chamber are endless … they've conjured up one of 2012's—or any other year in recent memory—finest debuts."

Mojo rated Melody's Echo Chamber four out of five stars and summarised it as "[a] luscious layercake of flange and Echoplex." NME writer Gavin Haynes compared Melody's Echo Chamber to several artists, including Stereolab, Broadcast and the Cocteau Twins, in his eight-out-of-ten review and said that "when Melody's light-saturated first single 'Crystallized' rolled into our Twitter feeds back in March, it was easy to dismiss the shimmery-shiny song as standard blog-bait. But Melody’s Echo Chamber manages to create something just as dark as it is light." Writing for The Observer, Hermione Hoby offered a mixed review, referring to Melody's Echo Chamber as "a dream-pop album with some heft." She praised the "combination of fuzzed-out guitars and breathy, girlish vocals" even though it is "by now an almost devalued musical currency". Despite describing the second half of the album as "unfocused", Hoby rated it three out of five stars.

Pitchfork Media writer Lindsay Zoladz concluded that the album was "an impressively immersive debut" in her largely positive review; Zoladz said that "the record's best songs tease out tension between soft and hard edges—a combination of beauty and brittleness", but was equally critical of the latter portion of the album, writing that it "doesn't quite have enough ideas or surprises". Jordan Blum of PopMatters wrote that Melody's Echo Chamber "feels like the perfect synthesis of 1960s hippie female songwriters and eccentric production masters … the sequence gets a bit repetitive by the end, but it's almost indisputable to say that Prochet offers some charismatic melodies … and interesting sounds along the way", ultimately rating the album seven out of ten.

Track listing

All tracks written by Melody Prochet.

Personnel

All personnel credits adapted from Melody's Echo Chamber's album notes.