Young Echo in Bristol

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  • "I think having the collective makes it easier for people to stop making assumptions about what type of music we make," Ishan Sound told me, in 2012, when Young Echo was in its infancy. Six years later, the Bristol-based crew has expanded to include 11 members, each with their own accomplished careers that orbit around a collaborative hub. On Thursday night, as Ossia and Kahn warmed up at the launch party for Young Echo's second album, the early attendees soaked up the blown-out drones and dub records with a silent reverence. The setting shaped the atmosphere. Lit up in a glaring red, the huge stained-glass window in Trinity Centre's Fyfe Hall bore down on the crew and their expanse of hardware. The vibe inside the venue made it all the easier to hear the demonic threads in their sound, while lending a spiritual quality to the music's more tender moments. Over the course of four fluid hours of records, dubplates, MCing and live performances, the audience was treated to both extremes. On the mic, Rider Shafique delivered one of the night's first standout moments with a powerful rendition of 2016 single "I-Dentity." At the opposite end of the spectrum to his razor-sharp reflections on racial profiling, Jasmine Butt's delicate tones on new album track "Here" demonstrated the crew's ability to deliver a chill-inducing love song. Manonmars cut a dramatic figure as he stepped out of the shadows, only sounding half sincere when he apologised for hijacking the launch party to showcase his forthcoming album with O$VMV$M. What followed was an intoxicating strain of skunked-out hip-hop, all sunken beats and dusky textures with a pervading bass pressure. It was the perfect bed for Manonmars' laconic drawl, his lyrical swagger offset by the low and slow register of his voice. This was one of several moments that proved that Young Echo represent the next step in Bristol's rich legacy of leftfield, dubwise music. Vessel and Chester Giles, AKA asda, were unmistakable once they took the reins. Vessel's bruising industrial percussion clanked and banged as Giles careened through fits of poetry and crowd baiting. It took a minute to realise that Giles was unfurling the lyrics to George Michael's "Faith," brilliantly recontextualised and with added resonance given the ecclesiastical setting. Ishan Sound's live set was just as potent, taking his formative steppers-influenced beats and branching out into rougher rhythmic structures that suited his signal chain perfectly. There was space for some irreverent laughs, too. When Ishan Sound dropped a dancehall version of CeCe Peniston's "Finally," the rest of the crew seemed on the fence initially, only to burst into dance soon after. The crowd, meanwhile, was still with them, having ridden every twist and turn of the night. In the conviction of their craft and their unified front, Young Echo managed to achieve that rare goal of transcending everyone's expectations. Photo credit / Khali Ackford
RA