It is a bright, spring day. Your morning cup of coffee is warm in your hands as you turn on the TV to find that there has been a nuclear accident, and everything you know and love will be gone in twenty minutes. You look outside at your suburban neighborhood and suddenly, your world is no longer your own.
This is the scene that sets in motion Echo Bloom’s forthcoming album, Wake, a vast, colorful portrait of a universe that feels eerily similar to our own. Principal songwriter Kyle Evans weaves tales of the onset and aftermath of environmental apocalypse, of disillusionment with the American Dream, of ghosts from a far away past, again and again exploring what it means to be a stranger in your own home, your own neighborhood, your own life.
Evans, who grew up spending his summers camping across the American Southwest with his family in an old Ford Aerostar, cites his acute connection to nature as an impetus for illustrating his bleak, yet vibrant, post-apocalyptic realm. His voice punctuates a lush palette of guitars and keys with deliberate lyricism, building an alternate reality that bristles with emotion and depth.
Wake was produced by Kevin Salem (Rachel Yamagata, Yo La Tengo) and Kyle Evans, and was recorded between Woodstock, NY, and Brooklyn, NY. It features Kyle Evans, Aviva Jaye, Cody Rahn, and Alex Minier.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the record’s opening track, “3 Little Birds,” which finds Evans illustrating the aftermath of destruction with stark imagery: “No more bark on the suicide trees / Just gold and pearls / Dinosaur bones / Colors all washed to monochrome.” He is backed by intimate acoustics and drummer Cody Rahn accentuating the percussion with a collection of found metal objects — hubcaps, aluminum foil, wing nuts — to create a mysterious and scrappy sound that lends itself to this post-apocalyptic odyssey. Between the singing and the instrumentation, the song feels like a strange cross between Iron & Wine and Tom Waits. The music takes an especially interesting turn with the powerful vocal solo from Aviva Jaye, who wordlessly captures the haunting nature of this abandoned place.
Kyle Evans shares his thoughts on the inspiration and process behind the song:
“‘Three Little Birds’ felt like something new when we made it. Like some fever dream. Silver airplanes sitting rusted on a beach – pale-skinned angels with kerosene eyes – abandoned gold and pearls in a city slowly filling with water. Now it feels prescient.
We made this song by hand, using guitars wrapped in aluminum foil, hubcaps, synthesizers, and our voices. It’s a prayer for a world into which we could someday wake.”
LISTEN:
For more music and info visit echobloom.com.
Photo credit: Lissyelle Laricchia
