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***During summer 1999, in the midst of a debilitating heatwave, French avant rock kings Ulan Bator and producer M.Gira (complete strangers to each other at the time) locked themselves in a tiny recording studio in a village just north of Florence, Italy, 18 hours a day for three weeks. As Olivier Manchion, Amaury Cambuzat and Matteo Dainese started to work with Gira (who had heard demos of the material, of course, and been a fan of their earlier records), it became obvious to everyone that they had to be open to anything, willing to start from scratch in some cases-- just throw everything out the window and make something happen right then if they were going to rise to the potential of the moment. Most, though not all, of Ego : Echo was written and/or (re)arranged on the spot, as the trio and Gira worked under increasingly intense pressure. Adrenaline, stress, heat, chaos, and panic, combined with the language barrier, forced them into places they never expected to end up, which, according to Gira, was incredibly elating. In some cases the basis for the song started with just a groove, or an electronic sound, or a vocal idea, or an accidental noise, and was eventually wrestled into the final version. To watch them play, cramped up in the miniscule recording booth (about eight by 12 feet, by Gira's recollection) - bass, drums, guitar and amps included - strangling the groove out of their instruments with completely unself-conscious commitment (and this from unrepentant, intellectual "art rockers"), was a joy he'll never forget. "Their musicality and their dedication to making something powerful and clear," says Gira, "out of whatever raw materials were at their disposal at the time (sometimes a grand piano, for instance, or other times a piece of looped digital feedback), coupled with their immense knowledge and enthusiasm for the music they love-- from the Beatles and Beach Boys to New York No Wave to Krautrock to experimental electronic music-- combined to make this, I think, a great "experimental rock" record-- or whatever genre you want to call it." "This may be the best rock music France has ever produced ... may be the only band from that nation worth a damn since Metal Urbain or Magma." --Alternative Press |
