Future Echoes
Future Echoes
FUTURE ECHOES is the third album from Pictish Trail, originally released by Lost Map / Caroline International in 2016, and rereleased as a deluxe version by Fire Records in 2018.
LIMITED EDITION DOUBLE LP - 2 x MULTI-COLOUR VINYL, IN A GATEFOLD SLEEVE + DOWNLOAD CODE, 18 TRACKS = £30
STANDARD EDITION LP - SINGLE BLACK VINYL IN A SLEEVE + DOWNLOAD CODE, 10 TRACKS = £17
STANDARD EDITION CD - COMPACT DISC IN DIGI-PAK, 10 TRACKS = £10
ALBUM INFORMATION
Written in remote seclusion but recorded in the bustling heart of London, it reunites Pictish Trail with Adem Ilhan, who produces the majority of the record. Johnny and Adem previously wrote music together in 2010 under the name Silver Columns, releasing the hugely well received album Yes And Dance via London taste-makers Moshi Moshi. Future Echoes features additional production and mixing from Rob Jones (Sweet Baboo, Slow Club) and drumming from Alex Thomas (Fridge, Squarepusher, Air, Bat For Lashes) and was mastered by Guy Davie at Electric Mastering.
A very personal musing on mortality, the death of friendships and the finality of things, Future Echoes represents the most confident, cohesive and pop-savvy collection of music Pictish Trail has written to date. The album’s opener and first single ‘Far Gone (Don’t Leave)’ takes its cues both musically and thematically from the Coen brothers’ Fargo, adding a tongue-in- cheek hip-hop beat, raspy Casio keyboard bassline and echo-slathered vocal over the top of an ominously queasy sample. ‘Dead Connection’ is a dizzying and very danceable dispatch of ghostly electro all about attempted discourse with the dead and accepting that what is gone is gone. ‘Half-Life’ slows things down at the album’s half way stage for a by-turns shuddering and twinkling take on decaying and yet somehow still interminable relationships, while closer ‘After-Life’ is a twisted polyrhythmic psychedelic disco opus, with a chorus sung in a Jimmy Somerville-worthy falsetto, reflecting on reincarnation and life lived on repeat. Which is exactly what you’ll be putting Future Echoes on by the time you get that far.
Reviews
“GLAZED WITH FUN AND POP AND EXCITEMENT” ★★★★ – CLASH
“DELIGHTS IN ROVING ELECTRONICA” ★★★★ – UNCUT
“A DARK POP ALBUM, AS JOYFUL AS IT IS UNEXPECTED” ★★★★ – MOJO
“PURVEYOR OF THE FINEST SPACE-AGE DISCO-WONK-POP” ★★★★ – THE ARTS DESK
“HIS VOICE HAS NEVER SOUNDED BETTER” ★★★★ – THE SCOTSMAN
“UNDOUBTEDLY HIS ALBUM BEST YET” ★★★★ – GOD IS IN THE TV
“LYNCH'S VOICE IS CONSISTENT, STRONG AND ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL” – THE QUIETUS
“MYSTERIOUS CINEMATIC POP MELANCHOLIA” – THE GUARDIAN
“A WELL-CRAFTED COLLECTION OF SONGS” – RECORD COLLECTOR
“CONFIDENT, SPANGLY POP MUSIC” – Q
“OUT GOES THE HOMESPUN, LO-FI FEEL, IN COMES A BIGGER, SHINIER, POPPIER SENSIBILITY” – THE HERALD
“BY FAR THE MOST BONZO POP RECORD JOHNNY HAS EVER DONE” – THE 405
“A WARPED MYRIAD OF APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLISM… BRILLIANT” – THE GUARDIAN
TRACKLISTING
SIDE A
1. Far Gone (Don't Leave)
2. Lionhead
3. Dead Connection
4. Rhombus
5. Half Life
SIDE B
1. Easy With Either
2. Who's Comin' In?
3. Until Now
4. Strange Sun
5. After Life
SIDE C (Double LP only)
1. After Life (Winter Rewind Acid Reflux)
2. Lionhead (Winter Rewind Acid Reflux)
3. Dead Connection (Winter Rewind Acid Reflux)
4. Until Now (White Poppy remix)
SIDE D (Double LP only)
1. Half Life (Live at Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow)
2. Far Gone (Don’t Leave) (Live at Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow)
3. Strange Sun (Live at Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow)
4. Brow Beaten (Live at BBC Radio Scotland)