Wandour on ‘Echoterrium’, Lost Memories and the Beauty of Imperfect Sound
A train journey can sometimes take you somewhere far beyond its destination. For Indonesian electronic producer Wandour, returning to a mountain town he had visited as a child unexpectedly unlocked fragments of a memory he believed had disappeared entirely.
His parents remembered the original holiday, but he had no recollection of it, and the photographs had long since been lost. Years later, retracing the journey as an adult brought something back.
“The train and the surrounding area had changed dramatically, but something about the sounds and smells felt familiar. Fragments of that first trip came back to me.”
The experience became a defining inspiration for Echoterrium, his forthcoming album on Resilen Records, released on 28th October. Across ten tracks, Wandour explores the relationship between sound, memory and place, drawing on cassette loops, field recordings, analogue processing and electronic instrumentation to recreate the strange sensation of remembering something almost forgotten.
The album’s title describes an imagined aquarium of echoes, where memories exist like submerged waveforms until something in the outside world disturbs them.
“It made me wonder how many memories are still there, just waiting for the right thing to reach them.”
For Wandour, those triggers might be rainfall, a passing train, radio interference or the sound of the ocean. The important thing is not necessarily the sound itself, but everything it brings back.
“You remember the place, the people who were with you and how it felt to be there.”
Rather than constructing a collection of literal musical postcards, he wanted Echoterrium to become a space where listeners could rediscover their own experiences.
“I wanted the music to offer a key that might bring one of their own seemingly forgotten moments back to the surface.”
That philosophy begins long before he enters the studio.
A self-described wanderer, Wandour travels with a vintage field recorder and camera, documenting environments that leave an impression on him. Yet his process is more deliberate than simply collecting every interesting sound he encounters.
He prefers to spend time observing a place, often scouting it with his camera before returning with recording equipment. The separation is partly practical, given the weight of carrying both, but it also allows him to develop a relationship with an environment before deciding what deserves to be preserved.
“Sometimes a rhythm or texture catches my attention. Other times, a sound brings up a feeling I want to explore.”
Those recordings can then take very different roles within a composition. Some remain recognisable, providing a tangible connection to the outside world. Others are transformed until their origins become difficult to identify.
On ‘Farewell Frequency’, for example, Wandour layered a recorded ship’s horn over the central synthesiser riff, allowing its distant, weighty character to influence the melody without necessarily revealing the original source.
“I like moving between those approaches, letting some sounds reveal where they came from and allowing others to become something less familiar.”
The transformation often involves equipment that many contemporary producers might consider unnecessarily unpredictable.
Old tape decks, cassette loops and weathered recording hardware play a central role throughout Echoterrium. Pitch fluctuations, distortion and hiss are retained not as decorative nostalgia, but because they can fundamentally alter the direction of a composition.
“Sometimes an imperfection becomes the starting point for a track.”
Wandour describes the process as an exchange between his intentions and the behaviour of the equipment. He chooses a cassette, sets the recording levels and listens to what comes back, accepting that the results will not always be entirely controllable.
“Those happy accidents excite me because they are not things I would necessarily think to create on purpose.”
This commitment to physical recording is also a deliberate statement about authorship.
“I also want to be clear that Echoterrium is 100% human-made, with no AI-generated components.”
For Wandour, the distinction is not simply technological. The performances, environmental recordings and unpredictable behaviour of analogue hardware are inseparable from the emotional character of the finished music.
That philosophy extends to the album’s orchestral elements.
‘Forest Spirits’ combines breakbeats and deep bass with a full string ensemble, drawing on the atmosphere of vast landscapes encountered during his travels. Rather than pursuing the immaculate precision of a sample library, Wandour wanted the subtle inconsistencies that emerge when musicians perform together.
“One bow digs in a little harder, a note arrives slightly early, or several players shape the same phrase in slightly different ways.”
Recording the ensemble through inexpensive vintage cassette equipment added grain and softened the sound, helping the strings settle naturally alongside the field recordings and electronics.
“I wanted to keep the unpredictable parts of a real performance, especially the moments I would never have thought to program.”
Elsewhere, the ocean becomes a recurring source of inspiration.
Having grown up around the sea, Wandour associates it with a wide range of emotions. ‘Seaside Moments’ reflects quieter memories of family life, particularly experiences that were never photographed because everyone was too occupied enjoying them.
He imagines watching someone close to him playing in the sand and waves as daylight gradually fades.
‘Sunshine Waves’, meanwhile, captures something more immediate: swimming, riding waves and feeling the warmth of the sun.
“If ‘Seaside Moments’ looks back from a little distance, ‘Sunshine Waves’ tries to stay inside the moment while it is happening.”
These contrasts help give Echoterrium its emotional range. While certain tracks draw on specific personal experiences, Wandour avoids defining their meaning too rigidly.
‘Farewell Frequency’ began with the feeling of departure at a port, while ‘Nocturnal Wind’ emerged from the experience of wandering alone at night. Yet neither requires the listener to imagine those exact circumstances.
“A melody can suggest sadness, anticipation or relief without deciding which one a person has to hear.”
That openness is central to the album’s construction. Environmental recordings establish a physical setting, while the instrumental arrangements leave enough room for individual interpretation.
Travelling with a recorder has also changed Wandour’s relationship with the world itself. He has become increasingly attentive to the subtle differences between environments, from the changing acoustics of a railway station to the distinctive sound of rain falling in different climates.
“A soft drizzle in Scotland has a very different presence from a heavy tropical downpour in Bali.”
Recording these details is not simply about documenting where he has travelled. Listening closely allows him to experience those places more fully, while preserving sensations that photographs alone might not recover.
The album’s final moments bring those ideas together.
‘Midnight Flame’ and ‘Static Connection’ close Echoterrium with a gradual movement towards acceptance and stillness. The former explores the possibility of confronting difficult memories without necessarily resolving them completely, while the latter drifts into late-night jazz instrumentation and radio static.
Wandour imagines its final atmosphere as the space between wakefulness and sleep, where distant signals emerge and disappear as the outside world grows quieter.
“I wanted the album to end without a final answer, but with the feeling that something has settled and the last echo can carry you into a good night’s dream.”
Perhaps that is the most fitting conclusion to a record concerned with experiences that cannot be completely recovered or preserved.
Echoterrium does not attempt to reconstruct the past with perfect accuracy. Instead, it embraces the gaps, distortions and unexpected associations that make remembering such a deeply personal experience.
Sometimes all it takes is the sound of a train.
Wandour’s ‘Echoterrium’ is released on 28th October 2026 via Resilen Records, available digitally, on vinyl and cassette.
