Released January 20, 2000 | Produced by Michael Gira for Young God Records | Recorded & mixed at Emme Studio (Calenzano, IT), 08.2-25, 1999 | Engineered by Boule and Federico Bortolozzo | Executive producer Sonica | Mastered for CD (2000) by Chris Griffin in Atlanta, USA | Remastered for vynil (2021) by Amaury Cambuzat at Let Go Ego Sound, IT.
Performed by Amaury Cambuzat, Olivier Manchion, Matteo Dainese
Arranged by Ulan Bator and Michael Gira
Special guests : Michael Gira of Swans (background vocals #7 #8) and Jean-Hervé Peron of faUSt (French Horn #7)
Lyrics by A. Cambuzat — Music by A. Cambuzat/O. Manchion
All songs SACEM (c) 2000 ULAN BATOR
Releases
- 2000 CD — Young God Records YG12 °
- 2000 CD — Sonica factory – 8 49077 2 / Virgin Italy °° **
- 2000 CD — Les Disques du Soleil et de l’Acier C-DSA 54071 °°*
- 2021 2xLP — Improved Sequence IMP027, ltd.ed. Orange/Black ORDER °°°*
Front cover illustration by ° Leon Van Roy (CoBra, 1950) °° Ricardo Mosner “Place réservée” °°° Leo Van Roy revisited by Kain Malkovich.
* Includes lyrics ** Includes lyrics plus italian translation by Silvia Dodi
…introduced by Michael Gira
One summer, in the midst of a debilitating heat-wave, Ulan Bator and I (complete strangers to each other at the time) locked ourselves up in a tiny recording studio in a village just north of Florence, Italy, for 18 hours a day for three weeks. We got to know each other pretty quickly! Of course I’d heard demos of the material that eventually became the songs on this recording, and I’d heard (and been a fan of) their earlier records, but as we started to work it became obvious to everyone that we had to be open to anything, to be willing to start from scratch in some cases – just throw everything out the window and make something happen right now if we were going to rise to the potential of the moment. So, much (though certainly not all) of this music was written and/or (re)arranged on the spot, as we worked, under increasingly intense pressure. Adrenaline, stress, heat, chaos, and panic, combined with the language barrier (they’re French, the engineer was Italian), forced us into places we never expected to end up in, which to me, was incredibly elating. In some cases the basis for the song started with just a groove, or an electronic sound, or a vocal idea, or an accidental noise, and was eventually wrestled into the final version you’ll hear on this CD (though other songs are re-arranged versions of material they’d previously worked out). To watch them play, cramped up in the miniscule (about 8′ x 12′, as I recall) recording booth – bass, drums, guitar and amps included – strangling the groove out of their instruments with completely uncynical and unselfconscious commitment (and this from unrepentant, intellectual “art rockers” – a breed I usually find to be pretty anemic, at best, and merely clever, or “hip”, at worst), was a joy I’ll never forget. Their musicality and their dedication to making something powerful and clear out of whatever raw materials were at their disposal at the time (sometimes a grand piano, for instance, or other times a piece of looped digital feedback), coupled with their immense knowledge and enthusiasm for the music they love that’s gone before them – from the Beatles and Beach Boys to New York No Wave to Krautrock to experimental electronic music – combined to make this, I think, a great “experimental rock” record – or whatever genre you want to call it. To me personally, it’s one of the most rewarding records in which I’ve ever been involved, and it’s an honor to be able to release it on Young God Records. I think if you listen to it with even a fraction of the pure enthusiasm of its intent, you’ll find much to enjoy here. As for the lyrics being sung in French: Tough luck, they are French. Michael Gira (YGR, 2001)
Reviews (Usa)
PLEASE FIND HEREUNDER A SELECTION OF EXTRACTS/CUTS.
YOU CAN READ THE COMPLETE REVIEWS HERE [PDF]
TIME OUT New York — 1/4/2001 | Issue No. 276 | Jordan N. Mamone
« Simply put, Ego:Echo is an out-of-nowhere, art-rock masterpiece. »
YOUR FLESH — Issue #45 | 6/1/2001 | Howard Weulfing
« As the worldwide underground gathers its forces for its next attack on the mainstream, the small triumphs are begging to build momentum, this being one. »
ROLLING STONE — 3/1/2001 | David Fricke
« A unique and addictive sadness… The coronary pulse of Can, the spatial trickery of dub reggae, the throbbing gravity of Joy Division. For best effect, turn the lights off before you turn the volume up. »
LA WEEKLY — 3/1/2001 | Jay Babcock
Rituel Humain. Here, on full display for 65 minutes, is everything that “post-rock” promises but almost never delivers. Defiantly, intensely alive. This is music without a manifesto — music that remembers it’s played by human beings. »
MOJO MAGAZINE — 2/1/2001 | Andrew Carden
« Ulan Bator weighs in somewhere between Killing Joke and Faust, no kidding… They are something strange and beautiful and other. Other than rock or pop or world or any simple label that could be slapped on their music. They are Outlanders — not mere “foreigners” but something so alien and different from what is heard every day that they can only come from someplace beyond what you know. »
AMG Expert Review — 5/1/2001 | Allmusic.com | Andy Kellman
« It would be lazy and limiting to merely say that Ulan Bator’s first U.S.-distributed record will appeal to those who think Sonic Youth lost it once they entered the ’90s. Their collaboration with Michael Gira clearly yielded something greater and more powerful than they had expected. It’s an ideal mix of noise, rhythm, and filmic sound sculpting. Very clearly, this power(ful) trio is the finest French rock export since Metal Urbain. »
UNDER THE VOLCANO — 3/1/2001 | Paul Lemos
« Cleanly produced by Gira himself, Ego:Echo brings together a wide spectrum of musical ideas and influences with its nine extended pieces. Moving from passages of somber melodic subtlety to others of controlled chaos. Ego:Echo is a mature, complex record by a band that shows significant promise. »
MEAN MAGAZINE — 1/1/2001 | Dave Clifford
« Ulan Bator first release on an American label is like tracing the trio’s finger-shaped bruises all over the throat of classic Brel, Bacharach, Morricone, Spector, Beatles, Krautrock and early Pink Floyd. However, where pop music lilts, Ulan Bator soars; where it finds respite, Ulan Bator scratches, carves and gnaws. Produced by the master of musical attrition, Michael Gira (Angels of Light/Swans), Ego:Echo merges elements of psychedelia, chamber pop and droning folk.. Although there is nothing “radio-friendly” or traditionally “Pop” about Ego:Echo, the passion for music which Ulan Bator exudes clearly indicates that violence is being done to the thing they love. »
SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY — 2/7/2000 | Dave Clifford
« Listening to the trio’s first American release (and fourth overall) is like tracing its finger-shaped bruises across the throat of pop history. For the French, it’s not enough to love music; one must embrace it with the codependent disgust of a couple verging on a murder/suicide. With Ego: Echo, Ulan Bator places itself in a long line of French artists — Situationist International, Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Gainsbourg — who both embrace and desecrate tradition. Beyond the quality of the music itself, it is this gleeful appropriation that makes the album sound as though Ulan Bator is doing violence to the thing that it loves. »
MILK MAGAZINE — 5/23/2001 | Jeffrey Norman
« Ulan Bator deploys an impressive array of instruments and techniques. It’s appropriate that ex-Swan Michael Gira produced this CD: the blend of dark power and eerie delicacy is reminiscent of Swans’ best work. This isn’t easy listening, and as Europeans Ulan Bator bring a more inclusive tolerance for musical approaches Americans might tend to call pretentious—but the band doesn’t slacken or strive primarily to impress: all their intense focus is on the music. »
INK19 — 5/1/2001 | Ink 19 | Mitchell Foy
« There’s a strong sense of the unknown and unheard in Ego:Echo that’s refreshing, and it’s easy to see why Gira digs the band so much. They have a fearless desire to plunge into deep waters, with a faith that through music very real and important fragments of understanding can be gleaned. The record as a whole plays out like an unfolding journey that is by turns sparse, enchanting, stirring, and rich. Next to Angels Of Light’s New Mother, it’s the best new record YGR has released thus far. »
SHREDDING PAPER — 4/1/2001 | Anthony
« They are a French trio who do a post-modern neuvo-rock mambo, cross breeding elements of art rock, Euro-industrial and post-punk. I can say this is the most entertaining and intriguing record I reviewed this issue. »
ALTERNATIVE PRESS — 4/1/2001 | Andrew Lentz
« Virtually uncategorizable, Ulan Bator should appeal to fans of hypnotic drone, whether they approach it by way of Femi Kuti or Hovercraft. Even at its most jarring, Ego:Echo works—not in spite of—but because of its fearless embrace of all that is clunky and unharmonious… »
Olivier Manchion 