We are excited to announce that we are working with Echo Ladies, a young three-piece from Malmö in Sweden. In a strange twist of fate, we met them at the Roundhouse in London after Slowdive’s show there in October last year.
Slowdive are one of their favourite bands, and they’re all proud shoegazers, but their sound is much more than that. In fact, their mixture of guitars, synths and drum machines is more like a Venn diagram of all my favourite bands and records. At various points I can hear The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’, The Jesus And Mary Chain’s ‘Automatic’, New Order and A Place To Bury Strangers’ total sonic annihilation, but crossed with the soaring indie-pop melodies of The Radio Dept, Alvvays, Camera Obscura and even a little bit of Saint Etienne.
The band’s self-titled debut EP was released by Hybris in their native Scandinavia last year, but will be reissued for the first time on vinyl and digital via Sonic Cathedral on March 23. The first song from it, ‘Nothing Ever Lasts’, is on streaming services now, and the video was premiered on The Line Of Best Fit.
Echo Ladies are Matilda Bogren, Mattis Andersson and Joar Andersén. They are three school-friends who, after playing together in a few different bands, realised that they worked best on their own. In 2014, after looking for “a name that represented our sound”, they became Echo Ladies, partly inspired by the name of the drum machine from another of their favourite bands, Echo & The Bunnymen. (Their own drum machine, for now, remains nameless.)
They don’t just look back for inspiration, however, also citing The Raveonettes, The KVB and Black Marble as helping to shape their sound, but they claim their biggest influence to be effects pedals (they are now making their own to sell on tour) and “the feeling of nostalgia and hope for the future mixed with angst over defining who you are and what you will become”. This explains why so many of their songs hit that melancholy/euphoric, happy/sad sweet spot.
They are in good company at the moment, too, with a number of other Swedish bands from Gothenburg and Malmö all making similar noises; FEWS, Hater, Pink Milk, Makthaverskan and Wy are all achieving varying degrees of international success. “People are slowly starting to realise what Malmö has to offer,” they explain. “There is a lot of room for underground genres and that is something makes us very proud to be from here.”
But they don’t just want to play to the converted in their home town, they are ambitious and hungry and keen to spread their beautiful noise as far as possible. “We love to play live and we would like to do that more around the world,” they say. “When people like what we do, it gives us energy.”
They’re set for an energetic 2018, then, because these Echo Ladies aren’t for turning.