Fantome & Rough Trade Bristol present Echo Ladies

The Swedish natives have recently inked a deal with Sonic Cathedral, the bastion of the shoegaze scene, and the band will be touring to promote their new 10" EP.

We are excited to announce that we are working with Echo
Ladies, a young three-piece from Malmö in Sweden. In
a strange twist of fate, we met them at the Roundhouse in
London after Slowdive’s show there in October last year.
Slowdive are one of their favourite bands, and they’re all
proud shoegazers, but their sound is much more than that.
In fact, their mixture of guitars, synths and drum machines is
more like a Venn diagram of our favourite bands and records.
At various points you can hear The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’,
The Jesus And Mary Chain’s ‘Automatic’, New Order and
A Place To Bury Strangers’ total sonic annihilation, but
crossed with the soaring indie-pop melodies of The Radio Dept,
Alvvays, Camera Obscura and even a little bit of Saint Etienne.
The band’s self-titled debut EP was released by Hybris in
Scandinavia last year, but will be reissued for the first time on
vinyl and digital via Sonic Cathedral on March 23. It includes
the tracks ‘Close To Be Close To Me’ and ‘Nothing Ever Lasts’,
the video for which was premiered on The Line Of Best Fit and
which went on to get plenty of airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music,
BBC Radio 1, XFM, Amazing Radio, Beats 1 and more.
Echo Ladies are Matilda Bogren, Mattis Andersson and
Joar Andersén. They are three school-friends who, after
playing together in a few different bands, realised that they
worked best on their own. In 2014, after looking for “a name
that represented our sound”, they became Echo Ladies, partly
inspired by the name of the drum machine from another of
their favourite bands, Echo & The Bunnymen. (Their own
drum machine, for now, remains nameless.)
They don’t just look back for inspiration, however, also citing
The Raveonettes, The KVB and Black Marble as helping to
shape their sound, but they claim their biggest influence to be
effects pedals (they are now making their own to sell on tour)
and “the feeling of nostalgia and hope for the future mixed
with angst over defining who you are and what you will
become”. This explains why so many of their songs hit that
melancholy/euphoric, happy/sad sweet spot.
They are in good company at the moment, too, with other
Swedish bands from Gothenburg and Malmö all making similar
noises; FEWS, Hater, Pink Milk, Makthaverskan and Wy are
all achieving varying degrees of international success. “People
are starting to realise what Malmö has to offer,” they explain.
“There’s a lot of room for underground genres and that is
something makes us very proud to be from here.”
But they don’t just want to play to the converted in their
home town, they are ambitious and hungry and keen to spread
their beautiful noise as far as possible, with a short run of UK
dates confirmed for April. “We love to play live and we would
like to do that more around the world,” they say. “When people
like what we do, it gives us energy.”
They’re set for an energetic 2018, then, because these Echo
Ladies aren’t for turning.

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