Layering an ambient, electronic sound with post-punk textures and jazz technique, West Virginia-based Auric Echoes creates soundscapes you can step into. The 2017 brainchild of bassist, vocalist, and lyricist Conner Rush, Auric Echoes grew from a one-man show to a four-piece powerhouse in as many years. Drummer Jonah Henthorne’s complex percussion builds the set, guitarist Jacob Noska’s dynamic soundscapes drive momentum, and multi-instrumentalist Erwin Dorawinville’s detailed riffs accent the space. Inspired by black midi, Radiohead, and Squid, the band’s tight synchronization and spontaneous improvisation inspire audience’s curiosity and invite precise attention. Their live performances are engaging and conversational, while studio recordings emphasize glitchy breakdowns, haunting lyrics, and electronic beats. Division for Human Ascension, Auric Ecoes’ most recent project, benefits from the band’s sonic evolution, navigating themes of anxiety, existentialism, and the human condition across ten tracks in dialogue with one another.
Not only does Auric Echoes not let off of the brakes on their latest single, they removed anything resembling a stopping mechanism. “Body Song” is three and a half minutes of pure post-punk anarchy. The band has moments of industrial bliss colliding with a brick wall of electro-rock distortion for a neck-breaking outing. The song feels clunky and rugged, but that seemed to be their intention. This is an apparent collaborative effort, and the magic is in their ability to blend their lofty ideas into one burst of modern post-punk aggression. The band borrows from outside the genre’s traditions to find the perfect concoction of uncontrollable electronics, searing guitar tones, and neck-breaking drum patterns. Their anger comes in waves. What starts as a traditional post-punk track quickly explodes into an avalanche of distortion, creating head-spinning melodies out of glitchy keys. Auric Echoes’ “Body Song” is a whirlwind of a listen that lifts you to unfathomable heights of frantic tempos only to drop you from its peak and send you plummeting into eerie tones.
“‘Body Song’ was one of the last songs we recorded for Division for Human Ascension. We’d been working a lot with more expansive and ambitious song structures, and we do think that’s our real bread and butter, but playing live, we felt we needed something more immediate and punchy, something to really add some variety to the album,” explains the band. “Around this time, Erwin, our winds and keys player, was working on his solo project, Mango 4th Ridge. He was doing a lot of glitchy electronic beats, and I thought that it could be a perfect fit for what we wanted for that last track. I wrote the bassline and sent it to him, and he produced and recorded all of the synths and drum machines around that idea. After that, we got Jonah and Jacob to come in and really fill out the sound with their unique touches to give the album a real moment of excitement. The main idea was to embody that Nine Inch Nails style of industrial rock and dance. At the end of the day, I wanted ‘Body Song’ to come out the other end sounding like something that would be played in the dance club scene of an action movie like John Wick: that moment where the assassin is taking out target after target while the pulsating drums hang in the background. Something that builds tension.”
