Secret Lovers Records Presents 'Eikasia' by Barbara+Marco

Listening to EIKASIA is like looking at the surface of water– as light touches it, colors reflect and refract, shimmering as it’s in motion. The curation of songs creates the sensation of looking through a mystical kaleidoscope, where one hears the colors shifting rather than seeing them. Frequencies and notes are interwoven into auditory textures. Morphing, ebbing, flowing, expanding, and retracting with every twist. Each song pulls the listener closer, guiding them through a journey of consciousness and rhapsody.

The doors open with TEARS. Barbra Gogan, vocals and guitarist, calls out- awakening the energy that’s about to transpire. Whispers that act as lures flying through audio-waves and verberations of bass, draw the inner eye. Sirens lead the way with hypnotic calls. Marco Dianese’s programmed electronic arrangements are the frequencies that carry their message past the stratosphere ascending to the cosmos, through space, then beyond the outer realms. The waves transform the environment into an audio womb. Melodic pleading, erotic pulsing, women calling, a story that’s only just beginning.

Enter OPTINA. The mood shifts. The environment intensifies with indecipherable, impassioned sermons broadcasted through an industrial intercom system. A glitched message is lost in transmission. Yet just beyond the walls, grows the sound of jungle, pressing against the gate. Inherently knowing, feet hitting the ground, arms swinging. Are we human, or are we machine? A tiger roams the scene. The bass marches on.

We’re taken through a portal. Time slows. Orsola Fezzi’s vocals are heard through the opening, bestowing an ancestral lullaby for celestial beings IN BETWEEN. The toll bell sounds, a thurman awakens, and guitar notes grow and swell as they layer with Fezzi’s ceremonial chants. All-encompassing notes, born of Johanna Moffitt, soar to the heavens, cascading and visceral, producing unearthly calls that rise and fall with growing urgency. Incantations offered by a woman or by the winds flow in and out against lingering, sustained tones. Resonating through the earth. Through all that is.

YOU THERE spins us back into a methodical, pulsing rhythm, with the moon and mood lit. Warmth and movement wash over the scene while soft, sultry beckons echo like ocean waves. Light, undulating bodies sway with the firmly planted beats. Letting go. Time to dance.

The kaleidoscope twists, Gogan's thoughts are transcribed, and BENCH appears. A dreamy collection of plucked notes arranged alongside field recordings that are stretched and pushed to their audible limits. The story unfolds, a stream of fleeting thoughts gently brush the surface of the water, passing through the epidermis. As they flow, the melody and heartbeat slows. The light fades into the distant horizon, beyond the tundra, beyond the cold and physical, becoming incandescent and lighting the way forward—a glowing ray of hope.

A bridge is crossed, it’s now PLAYTIME. Deeper into the mystical cavern, the beat comes and goes, as if orbiting—or rather, delivered by a slow, oblong merry-go-round. The otherworldly qualities pull the listener further into the dreamscape. Psychedelic, distorted guitar notes echo, creating a mantra-like repetition. Further and further in, one goes.

The prism turns, beams of light shoot out brilliantly illuminating ROISIN. Moffitt’s vocals dance calmly at first, intertwining with Gogan’s. The softness soon gives way to a quickened pace. Crescendoing vocals peak. Intensify. Spinning faster. Faster falling into one another, feeling free. Free to expand, beyond what is familiar.

Then, the eternal question: Do you think there’s LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS? A thought, recorded and projected in an endless transmission. Placid notes slowly gather, forming and shaping a Möbius loop—a meditation, an inward exploration. Traveling through the mind, heart, body, and soul, gaining velocity as it flows. Breaking free on the dance floor, absorbed into the ground, shaping seismic waves, the inertia propelling the pulses forward. Moving through electromagnetic fields and forces, forever cascading beyond what is known. All that is.

Inward, then out, then in. Again, again, again, and again.

https://barbaramarco.bandcamp.com/album/eikasia