December 5, 2025 |
Melody’s Echo Chamber, the project of French musician Melody Prochet might just be your new go-to indie artist. A 38 year-old former-violist who is renowned for creating music that inhabits “the liminal zone between realism and fables”, today, she releases her anticipated fourth studio album. Dubbed Unclouded, the album, released via Domino, sees the musician embarking on a life-affirming evolution, wherein metaphorical dark skies have given way to sunshine.
Unclouded features 12 tracks and is a rich, hazel-toned, dreamy sonic experience, filled with soft and harmonious textures that might make you want to grab a book and sit by the windowsill while the rain comes down. Riding through each track, listeners can expect to experience a sense of surrealism reminiscent of dreaming, with sounds that seem just as perfect for people-watching in a park as they are for softly swaying on the dancefloor.
Behind the album, Swedish maestro Sven Wunder works as co-producer and lyricist while Malcolm Catto is on drums and frequent collaborator Reine Fiske is on guitar, resulting in an album that celebrates both the present moment and the beauty of transient things. The title itself is lifted from a quote by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. ”You must see with eyes unclouded by hate…” he once said about achieving equilibrium, something that deeply resonates with Melody’s Echo Chamber. This glass-is-half-full outlook is immediately reflected in the album’s ethereal sound and its grounded lyrics. Here, the instinct to escape has been beautifully replaced by the sense of being present with nature, especially in the track Flowers Turn Into Gold. On the track she sings, “Happy as far as I go, flowers turn into gold”.
Ahead of the album, Melody’s Echo Chamber released the evocative single In The Stars.“I’ve looked at this shore, feel empty and cold, to find a place I can call mine” she sings on the track – a psych-soul soundscape of perfect balances close vocal harmonies with a glistening interaction between guitar and strings. Chamber’s sound is bolstered by Josefin Runsteen, whose avant-garde violin strings bring a unique sonic palette.
Here, we chat with Melody’s echo chamber about her upcoming world tour, favourite memory from her creative process of Unclouded, and her shyness of eye-contact.
1. Who is Melody’s Echo Chamber and how did you come up with the name?
I’m Melody and the Echo Chamber is this invisible playground where I let ideas resonate and echoes answer. Sometimes it’s more like a vessel for transmutation or a place I turn grief into a driving energy to move forward.
2. For anyone discovering your music now, which song would you recommend they listen to first?
I’d recommend listening to my new album Unclouded, every song is a piece of the same painting. Then you could also listen to my debut album or the opposite way around, I feel like there is a full circle feeling between both ends. I would recommend Bon Voyage to anyone who needs their creativity stimulated or go through some deep metamorphosis.
3. Your fourth studio album is titled Unclouded. What does Unclouded mean to you personally, aside from being lifted from Hayao Miyazaki?
To me Unclouded is an ideal state of mind, it’s kind of a philosophy. I need a number of daily rituals to get clarity and resists all the modern clouds of distractions, superficial intensity, disinformation. Sometimes I feel that it will progressively block the basic sense of discernment, the capacity of non-binary thinking and tolerance and take the time to be creative instead.
3. What’s your favourite Hayao Miyazaki film?
I love every single one, I feel he has this magical power to reconnect people to their lost childhood paradise. I also feel ‘unclouded’ after I watch them because they carry that non-binary message and that sacred bond to nature’s spirits. Ponyo’s décor used to be my dream lifestyle that kind of turned into reality as I recently moved into this old mossy cottage on top of a cliff by the ocean.
4. Your latest single Eyes Closed is about devotion and the beauty of transient things. What inspired the track? How were you feeling at the time of writing it?
My eyes are not closed in denial but in devotion, to seeing life and its vibrancy and its impermanence more deeply. The song was inspired by my daily solitary walks to the Ocean. One day this dolphin appeared right next to me very close to the shore, which never happens here in Bretagne. It was so blissful that it became a part of the song. I love to read about the symbolic and take it as a life sign or a message when I meet rare animals on my way.
5. What can we expect from your global tour next year?
I’m really looking forward to the new bass and drum team coming along, I have a feeling that the groove could be quite special and allow us to get even wilder and spiritualised, even more so with the audience through that.
6. What’s one memory from the studio when you were recording Unclouded that stands out?
The first studio day with new co-producer Sven Wunder when we recorded the song Memory’s Underground. We were both equally excited and terrified and just crashed into each other’s musical worlds. It was very fun and from that moment, we knew it was a match and that the record would work out in a special way. Recording with Malcolm Catto in Dalston, London, was also blissful.
7. What makes you blush?
Sometimes I have trouble looking into certain people’s eyes, they’re such a door to the soul, it can be quite intimidating and odd.
8. What’s your superpower?
Creativity without a doubt. I have always felt this whirlwind of ideas bubbling in my veins. To me creativity is my goddess, the source of flow and life, it fascinates me how nature just keep inventing strategies to adapt to change. That eco-systemic complexity is a constant source of inspiration to me and I try to take care of this universal source and always follow its stream.
10. What’s next for you?
Tour comes next! Then expand my horizon from the music world, I often feel this urge to do some social work. I also fantasise sitting at a desk and writing a book.
Photography courtesy of Melody’s Echo Chamber.
