Melody's Echo Chamber [LP]

The name Melody's Echo Chamber doesn't particularly roll off the tongue, but it does a fine job of preparing you for what you're going to hear on their self-titled album. Melody is Melody Prochet, the songwriter/singer behind the band, true, but the record is also coated in layer after layer of sweetly sung melodies -- "Echo Chamber" thanks to the homespun weirdness of Tame Impala's Kevin Parker and his effects-drenched, very echoey production. Cute tricks with their name aside, what Prochet and Parker have come up with here is music that follows in the tradition of art pop groups like Broadcast and Stereolab, borrowing their use of sound and structure to give their ultra-catchy songs loads of sonic depth and texture. Every song on Melody's Echo Chamber plays with sound and space, sometimes stripping things back and leaving space between the instruments, sometimes covering everything with a heavy blanket of reverb and fuzz. Parker is a whiz at each approach and his drum sounds are abso