4.52am Issue: 043 20th July 2017 The Only Echoes Remain Issue

ONLY ECHOES REMAIN
The Exigent
Having recently finished a tour with the
wonderful Wozniak, Only Echoes Remain
recently released their debut album, “The
Exigent”, which for a debut is both
incredibly strong and ambitious,
somehow walking a line between delicate
and powerful whilst never losing track of
the stories being told by a purely
instrumental album.
If you are looking for a genre, Post Rock
probably covers it vapidly, because there
is a theme of experimentation and space
here that Eno and Bowie would have
loved to create, whilst musically there is
a level of musicianship that could verge
on the jazz without such a sure touch.
This is a special album, a really special
album that you will explore as much as
you listen to, and we simply had to catchup
with the chaps behind it for a few
questions.
Here is what they had to say,
Tell us how you all got together?
“The amazing power of the internet!
When we started a year ago there didn’t
seem to be many musicians in London
specializing in post-rock and more fringe
genres who weren’t already in bands, so
I put an ad up on Gumtree, and here we
are!”
How would you describe your
influences as a band?
“I think one of the strengths of the band
is that we all have our own tastes and
influences, and are able to combine
those together. Craig (drums) has
probably been listening to post-rock
and more contemporary progressive
music longer than the rest of us, where
I came from a blend of 70s prog, altrock
and movie soundtracks. Si (guitar)
comes from a metal background in
previous bands, and Ali (bass) has a
wide range of influences, including
math-rock as well as pop-ier stuff. It’s
a really good creative cocktail.”
Can you describe your sound?
“We tend to describe it as “cinematic
instrumental rock”, but we’ve heard it
called post-rock and contemporary
prog in equal measure too.”
When did you start gigging - what
was your first gig like?
“We pretty much jumped straight into
gigging, refining our songs on the road
before heading into the studio to record
them at the end of last year. Our first
gig was a lot of fun, we had a great
turnout and lots of support, but it
definitely wasn’t my best performance
haha. The stage was super dark so we
couldn’t really see what we were doing
– I made quite a few mistakes but I just
tried to make up for it with more
energy and throwing myself around the
stage haha.”