*2025 stock* Electronic trio Evade have been honing their repertoire of sounds crafted within the urban pastoral landscapes of former Portugese colony, Macau. In their latest album 'Destroy & Dream,' Evade takes on the view of a distant observer, questioning life, the earth, the universe and the values of its living creatures, yet with the consolation of dreams, seclusion and shelter.
The trio builds a haunting tension through sustained silences and fractured electronic arrangements crafted by Faye Choi, the band’s producer and electronic visionary. Award-winning poet and novelist Sonia Ka Ian Lao adds poignant depth, layering whispered mantras in her native Cantonese on tracks like 'Forgetting,' 'Endless,' and 'God'. As much an imagist as a writer, she creates these characters and Freudian dream-like scenarios that seem circle each other in unpredictable rhythms, intersecting without premeditation. In 'Crush,' a melancholic dream-pop elegy, guitarist Brandon L strums the guitar so languidly as if in acceptance with the disenchantment of the world, and all is swallowed beneath a symphony of bit-crushed synths and white noise.
What seems like a continuous vision of despair is destroyed as if the Looking Glass has shattered – in 'Love,' all self-seriousness and heroism is clean forgotten now as disorienting, idiosyncratic elements are spasmodically injected – these are puzzling as they are almost self-depreciating, for here lies what really makes Evade so elusive. 'In Seeking Mr. Freud' and 'Pavilion,' unconventional textures blend minimalist beat loops with traditional oriental instruments and samples from classic Hong Kong films. The band, influenced by Cocteau Twins and Slowdive, fuses these inspirations with the whimsical, peculiar playful essence of Cocorosie. The result is a slow-burning eruption that shifts from excruciating intimacy to eerie deconstruction, unveiling flashes of light amidst illicit memories
The album includes three remixes by Japanese producers Fjordne, Serph, and okamotonoriaki, whose kindred sense of fractured beauty weaves seamlessly into Evade’s hauntingly intimate world.
