Biography
California-based experimental musician Brian Pyle, who also performs with Starving Weirdos and RV Paintings, records his solo material as Ensemble Economique. The project explores dark shamanic drone, mystical psych rock saturated with echo, and shadowy goth and darkwave atmospheres. He debuted the endeavor in 2008 with the Digitalis album At the Foot of Nameless Roads, whose clattering and at times abrasive soundscapes were accompanied by the label’s limited CD-R No GPS, which gathered the earliest recordings.
Two stylistically divergent LPs appeared in 2010: the sweeping, cinematic Standing Still, Facing Forward on Amish Records and the fierce tribal psychedelia of Psychical on Not Not Fun. Dekorder issued Crossing the Pass, By Torchlight the following year, introducing chilling horror-soundtrack synth textures and shuddering electronic beats that produced the project’s most immediate and unified statement to that point; Agents of Chaos simultaneously released the eerie, jarring cassette The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love.
Many 2011–2012 Ensemble Economique titles took the form of limited live documents, among them the Live in London tape on Not Not Fun, or split releases such as the Clan Destine Records cassette with Dubai and the Hands in the Dark LP Motion Forever shared with Lee Noble. These splits in particular signaled a turn toward creeping atmospheric post-punk and shoegaze built from sheets of heavily treated guitar and ethereal vocals. Pyle refined the approach on the widely praised 2013 Not Not Fun album Fever Logic, which quickly became the project’s most acclaimed work.
Additional 2013 releases included the limited picture disc (no thing-ness) on Dekorder, a split LP with doom-surf group Heroin in Tahiti on NO=FI Recordings/Sound of Cobra, and Shelter Press’s vinyl edition of The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love. Ensemble Economique also signed with Denovali Records that year, closing it with the abstract, collage-like LPs Interval Signals and Light That Comes, Light That Goes. The 2014 album Melt Into Nothing returned to the darkwave sound of Fever Logic, and 2015’s Blossoms in Red, featuring guest appearances by Soft Metals and Peter Broderick, extended the same direction. In 2017 the project issued In Silhouette, an album of tense cinematic drone that included a collaboration with Jung an Tagen.
Two stylistically divergent LPs appeared in 2010: the sweeping, cinematic Standing Still, Facing Forward on Amish Records and the fierce tribal psychedelia of Psychical on Not Not Fun. Dekorder issued Crossing the Pass, By Torchlight the following year, introducing chilling horror-soundtrack synth textures and shuddering electronic beats that produced the project’s most immediate and unified statement to that point; Agents of Chaos simultaneously released the eerie, jarring cassette The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love.
Many 2011–2012 Ensemble Economique titles took the form of limited live documents, among them the Live in London tape on Not Not Fun, or split releases such as the Clan Destine Records cassette with Dubai and the Hands in the Dark LP Motion Forever shared with Lee Noble. These splits in particular signaled a turn toward creeping atmospheric post-punk and shoegaze built from sheets of heavily treated guitar and ethereal vocals. Pyle refined the approach on the widely praised 2013 Not Not Fun album Fever Logic, which quickly became the project’s most acclaimed work.
Additional 2013 releases included the limited picture disc (no thing-ness) on Dekorder, a split LP with doom-surf group Heroin in Tahiti on NO=FI Recordings/Sound of Cobra, and Shelter Press’s vinyl edition of The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love. Ensemble Economique also signed with Denovali Records that year, closing it with the abstract, collage-like LPs Interval Signals and Light That Comes, Light That Goes. The 2014 album Melt Into Nothing returned to the darkwave sound of Fever Logic, and 2015’s Blossoms in Red, featuring guest appearances by Soft Metals and Peter Broderick, extended the same direction. In 2017 the project issued In Silhouette, an album of tense cinematic drone that included a collaboration with Jung an Tagen.
Albums
Radiate Through You
2018
In Silhouette
2017
Blossoms in Red
2015
Melt Into Nothing
2014
Light That Comes, Light That Goes
2014
Interval Signals
2013
No Highway - Black Vacation
2013
Fever Logic
2013
The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love
2011
Crossing The Pass, By Torchlight
2011
Psychical
2010
Standing Still, Facing Forward
2010
Singles
