Echo: The 5 best tracks from Ecco2k’s immersive new album

It’s been seven years since enigmatic Drain Gang rapper-producer Ecco2k released his last – and, until today, only – solo album, but this is for good reason. If we take his new album, Echo, released today, at face value, it seems he’s spent that time on the run: he’s been “Handcuffed in Heathrow” and “Held overnight”, as he croons on “Cuban Heel”. Meanwhile, the globetrotting video for the album’s lead single, “Aldehydes & Ketones”, depicts Ecco2k venturing everywhere from the Arctic Circle to the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo.

In reality, however, it’s hard to separate Ecco’s new international-man-of-mystery persona from the fact he has been pursued so rabidly by Drain Gang’s online fanbase throughout this time. Across their pioneering cloud rap releases over the 2010s, the Swedish collective – closely affiliated with Yung Lean – gave a stark voice to misfits the world over, decentring rap music from its traditional home in the United States and inspiring other rappers from the peripheries to follow in their footsteps.

But this treasured reputation came with an unintended consequence: Ecco2k, much like fellow Drain Gang members Bladee and Thaiboy Digital, has been subject to constant impersonations over the years. Unreleased tracks are regularly pulled out of secure shared drives and leaked online. Even the announcement for today’s long-awaited comeback, despite meticulous attempts to protect it, leaked on Reddit earlier this week. The lyrics on Echo, then, can easily be read in view of Ecco2k’s repeatedly emphasised desire for privacy. “Who wants to be a hero?” he asks on “Cuban Heel”. And, later: “Some think I’m dead, that means it’s working”. It’s like he’s been reading the comments about him.

The irony is that Ecco2k’s long hiatus from the public eye has led to some of his most immersive and compelling music to date. Rather than typical cloud rap, this is an electronic project told through the esoteric language of trip-hop: plodding kicks, hypnotic instrumental interludes, unnerving industrial samples. Occasionally, Ecco2k will rise through this haze to deliver an explosive moment of clarity – like addictive electro-pop-punk cut “Industrial Strength” – before disappearing into the shadows once more.

Much like the project’s uncanny, globetrotting visuals, Echo’s sonic palette evokes a fantasy world composed of both the urban and the natural. As gritty, conflicted distortion gives way to the occasional unfiltered guitar loop or – in the case of “Fæmous Vagrant” – the literal sound of birdsong, it’s the sound of finding unlikely beauty in the deepest, darkest corners of the machine. It’s the sort of musical escapism that Drain Gang have mastered better than anyone – one that transmutes the anguish of today’s internet generation into the hope of something more.

Below, we rank our five favourite tracks on Ecco2k’s immersive sophomore album, Echo.

5. “ECHO”

The first time we truly hear Ecco2k on the project, this title track introduces us to the newly murky texture of his voice. It’s no longer polished and Auto-Tuned, but drowning in the mix and practically trying to avoid detection – or, as he raps in the chorus, “swallowed up by the rising tide.” “Echo” is less about confronting the listener with clarity, and more about inviting us to sink into its warm wall of sound.

4. “ENCORE”

“Used to go to sleep in handcuffs”, raps Ecco2k, his voice filtered with the crackle of a broken intercom. If “Cuban Heel” paints our mysterious protagonist as an international man of mystery, then “Encore” suggests that this character isn’t as straightforward as he seems. Here, Echo’s industrial soundscape fractures into distorted pieces, glitching and twitching, while Ecco2k’s voice oscillates between pleading with a lover and rapid streams of consciousness. This is the conflicted peak of the album, and also one that sheds light on the inner turmoil behind it.

3. “ALDEHYDES & KETONES”

Put differently, this song’s title is basically just ‘chemicals and squeezed fruit’ – a pretty apt summary of the collision between industrial and organic themes on the project. Released as the surprise first single from Echo, it in many ways acts as a microcosm of the project, introducing its immersive, electronic trip-hop sonic palette and affection for long instrumental interludes. Still, it’s the most memorable of these interludes: the moment when those plodding kicks drop in halfway through just feels so satisfying.

2. “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH”

For the most part, Echo is elusive – it is murky, submerged, and rarely tries to confront the listener. It is against this backdrop that electro-pop-punk track “Industrial Strength” feels so impactful. It’s one of the catchiest tracks Ecco2k has ever released, and by far the brightest moment on the project. It’s sort of like New Order for a generation of doomscrollers. His vocals are clear and present, production is fluttered and colourful, and the whole track is propelled by a relentless, driving pace. Who knows what on earth Ecco2k is actually singing about, though – the lyrics read like the ingredients of a Duracell battery.

1. “CUBAN HEEL”

Sitting at the heart of the project, spectral trip-hop track “Cuban Heel” is the moment that everything on Echo comes together. It’s the definitive introduction to Ecco2k’s new limelight-averse, secret agent persona, and also name-checks various places he has visited over the last seven years (one line referencing bomb threats at a Monaco hotel even places the writing of “Cuban Heel” in June of this year).

Sonically, the track is a clear crystallisation of this new chapter in his career, with Ecco2k shedding the squeaky-clean Auto-Tune that underpinned his previous releases in favour of something darker, more serpentine and alluring. Set to cascading piano melodies and shuffling, glitched-out effects, it’s like if Tricky was on Radiohead’s In Rainbows, or if Portishead soundtracked Casino Royale. “Cuban Heel” feels instantly timeless.

Source link