Paranoia runs rampant all over this disc, a sense of voyeurism and danger with it, slowly escalating with every cautious movement. The technology we've built up all around us is slowly evaporating, wearing away with rain and wind. Nobody is sure what's beneath everything, what's grown since we buried ourselves beneath steel towers and miles of wire, but Echran is observing and recording the entire event.
Ebria/Small Voices
There's a scene in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream where Clint Mansell's grating soundtrack chronicles the end for just about everyone. It's the longest damn denouement in film history and Mansell's strings and electronic hissing go a long way in making the pain on screen seem very real. Davide del Col and Fabio Volpi must've watched that scene about three hundred times more than is healthy for a normally functioning human. Their music executes that same tense energy that Mansell's soundtrack did. It is dark, cloudy, and organic... and composed of nothing but computers. Echran is a strange project, a blend of many human thoughts and ideas synthesized from cold machines, colder atmospheres, and a sense that the end is very near for everyone.
Paranoia is in this disc's blood and so is apathy. With every dismal wash of machine sound and buzzing meters there is a sense that whatever world Echran is occupying, it is beyond the reach of hope and happiness. Every track moves sensuously, but only through the interaction of steam, pistons, and electricity. Everything has been reduced to a mathematically exact operation, efficient and smooth. But instead of relishing the mechanical perfection on the surface, Echran leave behind little hints of sounds and voices that make the whole operation seem murderous, like something is trapped in all those pipes and still alive.
There are a few other bands that have played up the mechanical or computer age and painted a picture of man as being taken over by machine entirely, too cold and comfortable in logic and reasoning to see beyond the prison of skin. It's a very pessimistic view, but one that this duo does not take. Echran do have that Cyclotimian element in their compositions, but more importantly they've left behind some human flesh and blood to be gnawed on with all the grim, dystopian imagery. So, instead of writing a mechanical album, they've written a distinctly human piece of music to the extent that their mechanical style will allow them. There are rhythms, melodies, hints of warmth in the bass tones and, simultaneously, there are clattering pops, the sound of electricity flowing through wires, the hiss and squeal of old steel shaking rust lose. Together they sound unique and breed a palpable suspense.
For some bands this might lead to some resolution, to the false belief that there is a synthesis of good compromise at the end of the tunnel. But Echran are smarter than that and their music simply leads to the end of the album where the listener is held aloft and expected to make his or her way down alone. Once they've built their music to unbelievably high levels and made everyone wonder what'll happen next, they simply leave it there and look on it in wonder. What happens when everyone wakes up, disconnects, realizes they're trapped, being watched, studied, observed beneath the glass of dollar signs and new and better products is not revealed. Echran make it obvious, however, that this is the state of the world. Their music can be reminiscent of nothing else: it is disturbing to hear and also breath-taking.
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