Echocopy's Zephyrus

By Jerry Herrera

Somewhere between vaporwave, space synth and retrowave lies the odd land of Zephyrus. It’s a tropical planet, lush and populated with chill people of every color on the spectrum, and whether we are in low orbit or swinging on a hammock, we exist in a place of beauty.



The music never gets above cruising speed and there are few, if any, really intense moments on the album. There’s really no story to be told, no narrative existing in the music, but that’s not why we are listening. We’re floating gently between tropical and deep house sensibilities but can never be bothered to get up and dance, because there’s a guitar always playing and it’s smooth and jazzy and it reverberates at just the perfect frequency to cause a warm buzz in one’s mind.

When we are not wrapped up in the silken sheets of tracks like Orbiting and Midnight Motel, we’re on a luxury spaceflight,looking out the window at the exact point where the atmosphere meets the darkness of space. The space synth elements on the album still remain warm and harmless. There are no derelict ships or alien horrors to worry about, only what time happy hour is when you’re going around the world in eighty minutes. Elon Musk needs to put this album on his playlist.

My favorite track has to be Through the Tunnel, arguably the most uptempo/outrunny track on the album. It’s got all we love about retrofuturism with a dash of cool, crisp aesthetic that all the kids are chasing these days. It’s the perfect nod to the past and the far future.

I will say that one tends to lose when one track ends and the next begins, because of the ubiquitousness of the reverbed instruments on each, but then again this is an effort that I felt as a whole more than multiple tracks addressing several themes. Every minute of Zephyrus is pleasing, but only scratches a small handful of aural itches one might have.

However, if you want to lie on an alien beach and sip strange booze while watching multiple suns set, you can’t do better than Echocopy right now.

Echocopy presents Zephyrus, available on Bandcamp through Music Box Records here and comes very, very highly recommended from Synthetix.FM.