To Wake a Dream in Moving Water: Echo Us Return from the Abyss With New Celtic-themed Album.Echo Us’ upcoming album takes from its founder’s past and spins it into a whole new direction.
In
late 1996 Ethan Matthews recorded his first ever commercially available
piece of music as a then 18 year-old guitarist working with electronics
and ambient music. “Satre Dance” fell in right alongside all the new
age and ambient music of the time. However Matthew’s mainstay in his
early years, the progressive metal act Greyhaven is still known today as
one of the pioneering, independent bands of the genre in the 1990s,
having combined new age ambient music with progressive metal.
Satre
Dance represented a completely different area of expression for
Matthews- a more relaxing kind of creative muse that foreshadowed where
his music would navigate to in later years with Echo Us. Satre Dance was
originally released on an independent label compilation in the UK in
October 1998. It is reprised on the new Echo Us album, recorded on
hammered dulcimer as it was originally intended, and re-titled "Aeriel".
“Back
then I was very into my electric guitar playing and my own short
attention span prevented me from learning acoustic instruments in the
way I do today. Although, at the time I still had the knack for a very
simple melody – it’s kind of like Haydn in that way, it’s kid’s music in
some ways and always felt very innocent”. (Matthews)
The rest of
the music from “Wake a Dream in Moving Water” is all new, composed and
recorded during the first few months of 2017. Although Celtic influenced
and comprised of a number of re-workings of Irish folk tunes and Breton
aires, the album is still in large part new and original Echo Us music
that fits right in the Echo Us ‘canon’. “Wake” is a natural progression
from “A Priori Memoriae”, which was released to critical acclaim in
Europe in 2014.
To
Wake a Dream in Moving Water is Echo Us’ ‘Celtic’ album that was
planned for a long time but never executed because of the work on the
trilogy that came before it. The album title is a typical ‘Echo Us’ play
on words which one can find their own meaning.
“It is also both evocative of the Oregon rain, which I am told is not too unlike the rain in Ireland.” said Matthews
“To
Wake a Dream in Moving Water” is also a comment on conception- which
was unintentional when the lyric was written. Matthews surprised himself
a few months after writing it, realizing that the song was actually
about the nitty gritty, biological workings of what happens when a child
is conceived. The folk song it derives from musically describes a
courting ritual, one that even today we can all relate to in our own
way.
“‘Come With Me Over the Mountain’ in acapella was the
musical inspiration for the song, and came into my consciousness after
the lyrics were written a few months prior. “ -Matthews
As with
all Echo Us recordings, a number of seeming coincidences resulted in
connections being drawn where prior there were none. Another experience
of similar capacity was found in oboe samples from A Priori Memoriae
that echoed the traditional “May Morning Dew’, also reworked for guitar
on the new album.”
A music video for the track Begin to Remember
will be released in tandem with the album on November 29th. The album
will be available as a physical CD in the United States and Europe.
Special order offers for European fans will be available through a
pre-order system on www.echous.net
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Echo Us Return from the Abyss with Celtic album
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