Close-up: Echo Tail – A Brief Escape from Life

(written by Mark Stebbing, Echo Tail)

“Echo Tail started off initially as an instrumental band back in 2014, but we have since transitioned into a more traditional alt-rock band that loves to experiment into different sounds. We wanted to create an album that focuses on a consistent soundscape and theme; a sort of soundtrack to the feelings of isolation, losing time and dreaming of things that were better in the past. It was important then that during recording and writing the songs, we had to think of the album holistically, how each track will intertwine with each other and carry those themes across instead of just creating individual tracks and hoping to piece them together.

Through this, “A Brief Escape from Life” has a dynamic variety of tracks, from short, intense interludes that carry the record along to long, prog-like songs that paint a more vivid story; the mood and intensity of the album also changes the further you progress into it; from the dark, dense opener, “Tessiaga/Aurora” to the more lush, dream-like Luminous and epic closer “Kaku mo naku mirai mo nai”. I guess the best way to help visualise the album is the album cover itself; you start at the edge of the ocean with the tides intensely crashing against the rocks, and as you get further into the album, the further you travel into the ocean itself, wrapped around the cold, gripping waters, slowly caressing you as you descend.

The album was recorded in our home studio, with just a simple setup of the usual microphones, guitars, drums and a laptop to record everything on. We wanted to keep everything as pure and simple as we could so it could be translated to a live environment. The process of writing the songs, as with our previous albums, maybe quite unorthodox to some. We always start with making the names of the tracks first, then building a foundation of sound with guitars/synths around the track name; then the lyrics and other aspects come after. The whole album is also produced and mastered by the band as well, so it is very much our own work.

We wanted the album to take on elements of shoegaze, using very hazy, distant guitar riffs and reverb-laden vocals but also incorporate some post-metal influences as well. We were listening to a lot of bands such as Deftones, The Body and Wild Nothing at the time of recording so they were some big influences for sure. Our intentions right at the start was to kind of split the album in half, where the first half is full of loud, energetic riffs and pounding drums, and then transition into a more dreamier, hazier second half which is a more introspective, reflective experience.”

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The ‘Close-up’ series contains insight provided by artists about their work.