French classically trained viola player, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Melody Prochet met Kevin Parker, the mastermind behind Tame Impala's scuzzy sonics, when her previous band, My Bee's Garden played support on Tame Impala's 2010 European tour. She described the meeting as “I guess a pretty magical, musical guru-esque encounter – he helped me destroy everything I’d done up to that point and then put it back together piece by piece, to sculpt it with the right balance of classicism but also the psychedelia and wildness I wanted.”
The pair collaborated and her next project, Melody's Echo Chamber, was born. Recorded at Parker's ramshackle studio in Perth and mixed in the South of France, the resulting 2012 self titled album received wide acclaim, establishing her alongside venerated psych pop vocalists Trish Keenan and Laetitia Sadier.
A near fatal accident that led to a broken vertebra and a brain aneurysm, created a six year gap until her recovery and the release of her bewitching second album, 2018's Bon Voyage. This was a deeper dive into the psychedelic world, and one she describes as “a little winter’s tale”, which featured Fredrik Swahn of The Amazing and Reine Fiske of Dungen, as well as Nicholas Allbrook of Australia’s Pond.
And now, four years later, arrives her third record Emotional Eternal. The difference between this and the splattered and sprawling Bon Voyage (Fredrik Swahn and Reine Fiske are again featured) is that here the emphasis is on the songs, which are each like little jewels. The eight tracks are short with just one lasting over six minutes on a record that is concise, 30 minutes in duration. But there are so many ideas here that it seems much longer.
Melody Prochet sings with real joy, which in our current troubled times can be seen as an anarchic act. Accompanied by string arrangements, for the first time, restrained and subtly powerful guitar and keyboard textures and relatively straight ahead bass driven grooves, she has surrounded herself with all of the elements necessary to enable her to soar as the perfect psychedelic chanteuse.
Buy Melody's Echo Chamber Emotional Eternal on vinyl from Flying Nun Records HERE.