LA duo Io Echo (Ioanna Gika and Leopold Ross) have been mostly noted for their 'new orientalism', a fusion of LA goth noir and pan-Asian references (Shanghai, Tiananmen, Hanoi, LA's Chinatown). 'Oriental' referents are nothing new in American pop music - e.g. Madonna's "Nothing Really Matters" or Katy Perry's geisha drag - but Io Echo does go beyond mere visual nods to kimonos, cherry blossoms and paper fans.
As CoS' Frank Mojica notes, their debut album Ministry of Love (2013) creates a fresh sound by blending 80’s indie guitar stylings, New Age, and Eastern Asian instrumentation: "Uptempo soarer “When the Lilies Die” takes industrial rhythms, shoegaze textures, and gothic undertones and sends them to another world via koto harps, Chinese violins, and Ioanna Gika’s airy vocals". The accessible song is ostensibly an upbeat, tragic-romantic ode to the fragility and inevitable death of young, beautiful, idealized love, which cannot survive the end of summertime:
'Shanghai gardenBlossom kissThe currency of lovers would insistEmpty promiseEmpty prayerThere really wasn’t much to keep me thereHow is it you are so surprised?In ParadiseThe wintertime came early in the yearYou brought the frost and made yourself quite clearSo don’t ask ‘Why?’ ask ‘Why?’When the lilies die
Source of lyrics: Genius.com
Io Echo's unique blend of Oriental pop, goth, and electronic rock and interesting visuals certainly intrigue, but as with The Bird and The Bee's "Love Letter to Japan", there isn't enough substance or intellectual depth to the track that lingers with the listener once the song ends. The "New Orientalism" aesthetic nevertheless seems promising - perhaps more depth can be achieved by infusing their next album with some of Edward Said's ideas and theories.
