Chris Pendergraft of space rock band Echocosmic
Cosmic Salvation Songs
Down around the back of a former iron foundry in east Oakland’s post-industrial wasteland, if you can find the door and know the secret knock, it is possible of a Friday evening to catch the lyric melancholy and faster-than-light travel of the band EchoCosmic at play. Synching digital beats and mixing board effects with live instruments, these musicians bring well-honed skills and a constant quest for meaning to their music.
In 1997 a quest for meaning through music produced Root Beer, the early band in which brothers-in-music Chris Pendergraft and Mike Blodgett began to work together. Through the writing and performance of the band’s signature protest rock songs, Mike Blodgett’s guitar style developed lyric eloquence, with bright sprays of descending sounds arcing like brief light pulses in the cold and indifferent openness of deep space.
Inherent in the name Echocosmic is the powerful sense of great distance and vast lapses of time. Cosmic is defined as: the whole universe;immeasurably extended in space or time; vast; harmonious. All of these elements have a place in the band’s compositions. The word echo comes to us from the mythological Greek nymph who pined away for the beautiful, indifferent Narcissus until only her voice remained. With this etymology, it is no wonder that the echo carries an implicit sense of melancholy.
But an echo also relates to sound in a manner of interest to music-makers; it is uniquely produced by reflecting sound waves from a surface, where the returning sound may be only a fragment of the original. And herein lies the heart of the matter, for in the songs of Echocosmic we hear the report of the interstellar traveler, returning across inhuman distance and still more inhuman time.
These songs are evocative of struggle, mourning, and memory, chronicling the birth of black holes or the explosive nirvana of a star going nova. ”Red Shift” with its desending chords and cascading shower of deep notes, feels like we are listening to the recorded end of some ancient civilization or an entire planet, perhaps as viewed by an anguished alien race of future spacefarers.
A red shift refers to a change in light wavelengths, moving toward a slower, cooler portion of the spectrum. The sun is a frequent, even baseline reference in space rock, and Echocosmic heeds this tradition. Another of their songs is meant to communicate the point of view of bacteria colonizing a sun: in the heat of the solar flares, the space bacteria awaken, grow and make a new home.
In 1968, Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun came out on the album Saucerful of Secrets by Pink Floyd, pioneering progressive rock’s shift toward what would be termed “space rock;” their solar fires and deep cold space attracted the attention of people ranging from NBA Hall of Fame star Dennis Rodman to Exorcist movie star Linda Blair.
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is a ten minute extravaganza of “out there” sound which builds to a violent end that actually comes, impossibly, as a climax. This distinctly disciplined approach to a pulsing momentum with abstract sound became a genre that encompasses much of Echocosmic today.
Drummer Eric the Mover
Keeps the rhythm out there!
*************
Mike Blodgett
Lead Guitar, a Sonic Space Cadet
*******************
Merging technology and Music
Powering their Space Odyssey
******************
Their Rehersal Space is Also a Recording Studio
Which Blodgett built to Free the Band from the tyranny of record companies
******************
East Bay Artist Susannah Israel and Ray Heywood
Are Mesmerized by the Music
*******************
Text by: Susannah Israel
Photos by: Playthell Benjamin
April 20th 2014
Oakland, California
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This entry was posted on April 20, 2014 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Guest Commentators, Music Reviews with tags EchoCosmic-, Pink Floyd, Space Rock. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Melting The Sun
Chris Pendergraft of space rock band Echocosmic
Cosmic Salvation Songs
Down around the back of a former iron foundry in east Oakland’s post-industrial wasteland, if you can find the door and know the secret knock, it is possible of a Friday evening to catch the lyric melancholy and faster-than-light travel of the band EchoCosmic at play. Synching digital beats and mixing board effects with live instruments, these musicians bring well-honed skills and a constant quest for meaning to their music.
In 1997 a quest for meaning through music produced Root Beer, the early band in which brothers-in-music Chris Pendergraft and Mike Blodgett began to work together. Through the writing and performance of the band’s signature protest rock songs, Mike Blodgett’s guitar style developed lyric eloquence, with bright sprays of descending sounds arcing like brief light pulses in the cold and indifferent openness of deep space.
Inherent in the name Echocosmic is the powerful sense of great distance and vast lapses of time. Cosmic is defined as: the whole universe;immeasurably extended in space or time; vast; harmonious. All of these elements have a place in the band’s compositions. The word echo comes to us from the mythological Greek nymph who pined away for the beautiful, indifferent Narcissus until only her voice remained. With this etymology, it is no wonder that the echo carries an implicit sense of melancholy.
But an echo also relates to sound in a manner of interest to music-makers; it is uniquely produced by reflecting sound waves from a surface, where the returning sound may be only a fragment of the original. And herein lies the heart of the matter, for in the songs of Echocosmic we hear the report of the interstellar traveler, returning across inhuman distance and still more inhuman time.
These songs are evocative of struggle, mourning, and memory, chronicling the birth of black holes or the explosive nirvana of a star going nova. ”Red Shift” with its desending chords and cascading shower of deep notes, feels like we are listening to the recorded end of some ancient civilization or an entire planet, perhaps as viewed by an anguished alien race of future spacefarers.
A red shift refers to a change in light wavelengths, moving toward a slower, cooler portion of the spectrum. The sun is a frequent, even baseline reference in space rock, and Echocosmic heeds this tradition. Another of their songs is meant to communicate the point of view of bacteria colonizing a sun: in the heat of the solar flares, the space bacteria awaken, grow and make a new home.
In 1968, Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun came out on the album Saucerful of Secrets by Pink Floyd, pioneering progressive rock’s shift toward what would be termed “space rock;” their solar fires and deep cold space attracted the attention of people ranging from NBA Hall of Fame star Dennis Rodman to Exorcist movie star Linda Blair.
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is a ten minute extravaganza of “out there” sound which builds to a violent end that actually comes, impossibly, as a climax. This distinctly disciplined approach to a pulsing momentum with abstract sound became a genre that encompasses much of Echocosmic today.
Drummer Eric the Mover
Keeps the rhythm out there!
*************
Mike Blodgett
Lead Guitar, a Sonic Space Cadet
*******************
Merging technology and Music
Powering their Space Odyssey
******************
Their Rehersal Space is Also a Recording Studio
Which Blodgett built to Free the Band from the tyranny of record companies
******************
East Bay Artist Susannah Israel and Ray Heywood
Are Mesmerized by the Music
*******************
Text by: Susannah Israel
Photos by: Playthell Benjamin
April 20th 2014
Oakland, California
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on April 20, 2014 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Guest Commentators, Music Reviews with tags EchoCosmic-, Pink Floyd, Space Rock. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.