ECHTHROS – God Is Love

Sheer sonic agony in the form of a meticulously arranged and self-recorded drone/HNW/power-electronics album delivers a central theme of ongoing colonial violence perpetrated by the Canadian Government and Catholic Church against the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island. Haunting and poignant samples of living survivors of the Grouard Indian Residential School as well as contributions from other Indigenous kin are featured throughout the EP. Echthros’ storytelling delivers anguish, vengeance, determination, and celebration through a wall of harsh drone balanced with the calm uneasiness of what is to come next. When asked about the specific meaning of the title Echthros’ sole member, Jesse Decay, had this to say: “God is love” is a title based on dualities I’d say. To explain the overall meaning involves some family history: I’m an indigenous person from Alberta Canada, my family is Cree from Fort McKay, and my grandmother was taken to residential school when she was five. I started writing this album around the time that the graves of hundreds of children were being discovered around the old residential schools about a year and a half ago. In a film my mom made about my granny’s experience she said “for the longest time I feared god, but once I got out of there I realized that god is love”. I named the album after that because it’s so interesting to me how much grace and forgiveness she feels about the entire experience, whereas I have a great deal of anger and antipathy towards the Catholic Church for what they did and feel that god is anything but love based on what they did to our people. So “God Is Love” is about residential school, indigenous resilience, and colonialism in Canada in general.”