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By John Norris @jonnynono

If you've ever been to Perth, in Western Australia, or Cavalière, on France's idyllic Côte d'Azur, you know that they are both sun-drenched spots where life tends to move a little slower, and any work that gets done is tempered by an ample dose of relaxation. Wonder then, that the debut album from French singer-songwriter Melody Prochet's latest project, Melody's Echo Chamber, ever got done.

As Prochet tells us this week on Face Time, she recorded the bulk of this sublime debut in Perth with Tame Impala's fuzz rock mastermind Kevin Parker at the helm, then decamped to her grandparents' seaside home to do vocals (the South of France is also where Prochet filmed the trippily color-soaked underwater video for "I Follow You", which you'll see here as well). The result is a perfect mélange of Prochet's penchant for pretty chords and Parker's talent for psych-space grooves, and a far cry from Prochet's earlier bands, including the Paris-based My Bee's Garden. There are a few reference points that Melody's album brings to mind, and one, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier, she calls "a muse". 

Also in our conversation at New York's Ace Hotel, you'll hear about Prochet's early years in a musical family near Aix-en-Provence (she studied classical viola for 12 years), and the "excuse" she came up with at 18 to escape to Paris; how she'd always written in English, not French, until she came up with a couple of songs for Echo Chamber in her native tongue; and of the song that served as the "trigger" for the new album, "You Won't Be Missing That Part of Me", written after Prochet broke someone's heart. 

It's one of the most exciting debuts of the year, a record that, no joke, sparkles like the waters off of Cavalière and Perth, and the woman behind it is our très charmante guest on Face Time--Melody Prochet, of Melody's Echo Chamber.