French multi-instrumentalist Melody Prochet makes the kind of reliably atmospheric music that can turn even the most everyday moment into a scene from a Sofia Coppola or Xavier Dolan movie about doomed youth. Melody’s Echo Chamber glints like gossamer: cinematic dream-rock soundscapes, muted explosions of fuzzed-out bass, and coiled percussion wrapped in reverberant, jangling guitar.
Her sepia-toned shimmer gets even dreamier on Unclouded, Prochet’s fourth album—fifth, if we count the “lost” album Unfold (and we should). She plays to her strengths here, the music unfurling in diaphanous pop-rock psychedelia that threatens to float away. The album is a swatch of beautiful, shiny fabric hanging from a tree branch, dancing in the breeze—and in danger of being shredded into bits of glitter by a too-strong gust.
The pretty chords and arpeggios Prochet claimed to have tired of before writing the self-titled record that put her on the map dominate Unclouded. The downtempo march at the heart of “Memory’s Underground” explodes into a storm of strings and reverb. The El Michels Affair-assisted “Daisy” is bottled sunshine by way of plucked electric guitar and a repetitive drum line you can hear in almost every song on the record. Her singing voice has always been a wisp threading her more substantial arrangements together, and the same is true here. Prochet largely sings in English on Unclouded, which is fine, though the bilingual element always added an extra layer—her songs in French have a larger-than-life quality, sung with an authority that suggests Prochet as an heir-apparent to French electro-rock pioneers like Air. Much like their own cotton-candied music, Unclouded melts into itself, an ethereal tapestry that lacks definition. It’s beautiful, but not even the singles really stand out on their own.
