French musician Melody Prochet, better known as Melody’s Echo Chamber, released Unclouded on December 5, 2025 via Domino Recording Company. If you don’t count her ‘lost’ compilation record of early rejected works (which, quite frankly, you should), this is Prochet’s fourth studio album in her critically celebrated discography. Although Unclouded captures the same ethereal, overlapping harmonies that have come to characterize Prochet’s unique brand of psychedelic-shoegaze-ethereal pop-rock, in the end, the project relies too heavily on this well-practiced sound, lacking much of the innovation that catapulted her first three records to success.
Named after a reflection from famed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki about seeing life “with eyes unclouded by hate,” Unclouded unfolds less like a collection of diverse songs and more as one continuous emotional state: nostalgic, tender, and gently unresolved. Prochet’s signature dreamlike vocals weave a continuous thread through each track, abandoning her earlier themes of love and heartbreak for more mature, Adrienne Lenker-style reflections on life and loss.
The record opens with “The House That Doesn’t Exist,” a track that swims in space, loose yet tightly wound, laying down the expressive, pensive nature of the album. Reminiscent of dreampop legends like Japanese Breakfast and The Marias, this woozy sound remains largely unchanged except for just three tracks. The first, “Childhood Dream,” sees Prochet finally altering her vocal delivery, introducing a fragile, pleading tone that gains confidence through the track as she recalls that innocence, like dreaming, must be temporary.
“Broken Roses” is the emotional center, where the overlapping guitar harmonies, swelling orchestral moments, and the prominent rhythm section that have characterized the first six songs finally give way to sparse, synthy piano chords atop just one twinkling guitar line and rare longing breaths from Prochet’s primary instrument, the viola. “Unclouded,” the album’s titular and only instrumental track, strips away the synth and the vocals that have so far imprisoned Prochet on this album in favor of an entrancing viola melody and an ocean wave that ushers the listener into a misty afterlife.
“Unclouded” is a standout track, joined by “How to Leave Misery Behind” — which, over the course of just two minutes, transforms from a haunting, string-dominated reflection on pain into an ode to karma, proclaiming that “life will take you where you belong.” The last song of note is the closer, “Daisy,” on which Prochet shares production credits with El Michels Affair. “Daisy” is immediately delightful, breaking the spell left behind by “Unclouded” with sunny tambourine and a virtuosic, Steve Ray Vaughn-esque guitar solo; it is a breezy farewell to an album full of uncertainty, self-reflection, hope, and despair.
Unclouded is a relaxing listen, uncomplicated on the surface, buoyed by its maturity but held back by its immense cohesion. Gone are the French lyrics that once traded equally with English, gone are the innovation, experimentation, and rawness of Prochet’s first albums, replaced by 12 more-or-less cotton candy songs that feel as though they could melt into wisps at any moment. Although the lyrics throughout “Unclouded” are among Prochet’s best to date, their depth is mismatched with the easygoing aural landscape.
It’s easy to wish for more of the ever-changing yet balanced sound that her audience has come to expect, but perhaps this was the point — the dichotomy between lyric and music as a reflection on the instinct to file away the painful emotions in their own compartment, to pretend they’re not there.
Unclouded is not Prochet’s best album, but it feels like an important one in the course of her career as she reaffirms her commitment to her sound and to herself. Day and night, good and bad, dark and light – they coexist on this album, just as they do in everything.
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