Review: Melody’s Echo Chamber — Unclouded

Melody’s Echo Chamber
Unclouded
Domino Recording Company
Street: 12.05.2025
Melody’s Echo Chamber = Air + Beach House + Tame Impala

Melody’s Echo Chamber is the musical project of French musician Melody Prochet. Her latest album Unclouded is a shock to the senses. Listening to this record is like being in a psychedelic, dreampop fever dream with butterflies, strawberry alarm clocks and dandelion wine. Unclouded sounds like the trippy phase of George Harrison and the sugar high of ‘70s-era Burt Bacharach productions. The record is beautiful and magical. It never truly takes off in any direction, it just floats elegantly track-to-track. Unclouded moves at its own pace, like the blossoming of a flower.

The opening track “The House That Doesn’t Exist” is a dreamy, spacious treasure that unleashes the tone for the rest of the record. With its soulful, psychedelic pop production it echoes the ‘60s wall of sound aesthetic that fueled the super group The Ronettes, who were led by the legend Ronnie Spector. Prochet whirls and swirls her airy vocal style around instrumentation that sounds like it was plucked out of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. “In the house that doesn’t exist / There’s a cat asleep on my knees / Blue shadow, view of the beach / Two horses stay on the field.” Prochet’s stream of consciousness continues to spin: “One secret lives forever / It follows me whenever.”

The track “In The Stars” feels like mist. “Baby, you think I’m crazy / Wandering baby / Don’t think I’m crazy / ‘Cause I wonder how I’ve been here before / I’ve looked at this shore / Feel empty and cold / To find a place I can call mine / In the stars.” Melody’s Echo Chamber is not of this earth. It’s cosmic.

Prochet continues her Alice In Wonderland vision with the track “Eyes Closed.” She sings, “Solitary walk at night / Sun reflects the oceans light / Following the dolphins swim on my side / Solitary walk by night / Touch will feel the ocean’s right / Feeling the dolphins swim on my side.” The track drips like maple syrup with Beatles-esque psychedelia and fuzzy guitar buzzing all around a way-stoned hive.

The track “Flowers Turn Into Gold” continues the long strange trip. “Velvet sits at my door / Colors turn into gold / Happy as far as I go / Flowers turn into gold / There’s an ocean of love / Pouring into my soul / Happy as far as I go.” The track sounds like a Yusuf (Cat) Stevens song where Prochet switches into French halfway through, enhancing the dreamscape she so effortlessly creates.

Unclouded ends in the dreamy, druggy and optimistic “Daisy,” which features El Michels Affair. Prochet sings, “Time just passed so fast as you walked at the door / Those feelings never left the inside / It’s all exploded in the undertone / Silence and tears / Orion looks at the shore / Daisy / Rising to the sun.” Its hard to review this record track-to-track, as it unfolds like one beautiful song that stretches out for just over 30 minutes. It’s like stardust and rust, and arrived just in time for the Winter Solstice.

This record is quiet and filled with multitudes. It’s a sugar rush, a microdose of Psilocybin, a hero’s journey across the universe contained in the experience of listening. If you chose to hitch a ride on this trip it’s electric Kool-Aid will spill all over the place for you. If you let it. Put headphones on. Let this record consume you and transfer you to a better place. A comfortable place where you feel okay. Trust me, this record takes you there. Unclouded is a Spring day in the heart of Winter. Take the ride. As Timothy Leary once said, “Inner reality is certainly more important than the outer reality.” Unclouded will help you turn on, tune in and drop out. —Russ Holsten

Read more album reviews by Senior Staff Writer Russ Holsten:
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