Echo Collective – ‘Mirror Image’ [EP] [Album Review]

Echo Collective, made up of Neil Leiter and Margaret Hermant, releases their new EP, Mirror Image, a five-track collection of orchestral instrumental music that spans the gamut of post-classical, neo-classical, and non-classical.

Mirror Image combines acoustic research in immersive environments: 4DSound at Monom in Berlin, DNB Soundscape at the CCHasselt in Belgium, and Wave Field Synthesis with AOI dance company in Chatham, UK.

Inspired by these new technological tools, Echo Collective recorded Mirror Image in an eclectic mix of familiar and inspiring acoustical spaces: a historic library in Ravenna, Italy, a church in the countryside from Margaret’s childhood, La Savonnerie in Brussels, Dada Studio in Brussels, and at home.

Entry points include “Dante,” which captures a delicate unspoken dialogue between instruments and expression, creating a wafting, shifting soundscape of lustrous beauty. The intertwining tones reveal the intimacy of conversation through lustrous, echoing hues.

A personal favorite, because of its sensation of serene silence, “Manhattan” hovers on diaphanous colors that shimmer on suspended surfaces, evoking eloquent responses from listeners. While “Wonder” opens on soft, trickling textures akin to raindrops and slowly builds in depth and scope, culminating in a glorious sense of suffusing awe.

Echo Collective, photo by Danny Willems

An aura of darkness permeates “Standing Wave,” infusing the tune with an elusive, portentous perception of a posteriori, effect to cause, like dismal foreboding emerging from embryonic, ambiguous fear.

Exploring contemporary, experimental classical music, Mirror Image offers gorgeous, hypnotically enveloping soundscapes.

Mirror Image Track Listing:

1. Dante
2. Manhattan
3. Home
4. Wonder
5. Standing Wave

Run Time: 24:20
Release Date: March 22, 2024
Record Label: Independent