They were unadulterated party anthems that deserved to be played loud. Enough so that I would half-jokingly send a track to a friend with a text like “these guys are gonna be HUGE!” while waiting in line at the local Target, yet also hijack my house’s sound-bar to play the singles. In hindsight it was an incredulous choice as the number 1 album of 2003.

I immediately fell head over heels with the latter, especially the lead single from the Rapture’s Echoes. The pitchfork 2003 singles list is a helpful guide into the finest in “the shape of things to come”: leaked Madvillainy, Dizzee Rascal, and dance punk. In one of my final pre-lockdown shows, I had Miguel Penabella on to discuss “2003 music in general” on my Sunday radio show. The origins of all of this went back to March. After days of delay and angry DHL phone calls, they had unceremoniously arrived, waiting on my bed for me to open and dive in to. Nothing, though, could compare to when I got an unexpected Snapchat from a friend: “the DHL lady came up to us while we were smoking and handed us your tapes from Indonesia”. I did return to three tape stores * which ended with me scoring U2’s liminal masterpieces, J Dilla’s Donuts, and blank cassettes for an upcoming project (shh!). I was home last week on vacation, the first time since May, taking in an open, if not perpetually “time stuck” San Diego. This time around, they dive deep into the genesis of dance punk and the Rapture’s Echoes. Sure, you were probably drawn to this album for one song, but actually there is a lot more to be had here, and before you know it, you’re pretty much enthralled by the whole thing, wonderful.With our 2019-2020 Internal Music Director under self-quarantine, Matthew McPherson (Wane Lietoc) has taken to their personal tapes, highlighting and documenting the most outstanding in their collection. The Rapture on this album seem to be helping themselves to many a genre and merging it all into one big marvellous creation, from bog standard Dance Indie to Post Punk, even finding times to marry Grunge and House with a kind of Velvet Underground/Plastic Ono Band vibe to back it all up with. The thrilling thing though about Echoes by The Rapture is the level of influences. Songs like Sister Saviour, Love is All and Infatuation, demonstrate that maybe The Rapture deserved their hype back in 2003 and today. But there are some sweet moments above all the rhythmic shebang. The title track isn’t too bad, Echoes is actually my favourite song from the album at the minute and is just one of those songs you have to play loud for the rest of the bus to hear. So, I could end it all there, but I should probably mention at least a couple of other highlights that can be found on this album as well. It seems only fitting that we look at that famous song of theirs first, House of Jealous Lovers is by definition, “a beast”, it begins with a scream, is filled with cow bell rhythm, pulsating base, whaling and angst ridden vocals and all the while, wrapped in a Stirling Morrison guitar style, in short it is one of the best songs of the decade by a country mile. Here in Britain, despite the euphoria for this band being based upon a couple of songs, the band seemed to find themselves in the company of other NME favourites like The Strokes and The Libertines overnight. Released on DFA in 2003, Echoes by The Rapture was an instant draw for the student crowds of the UK. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait too long to find out, The Rapture’s big break came with their second studio release, an album that seemed to catapult The Rapture right above the critics and into your record player at home. Indeed the pressure was on expectations were high in the underground communities of many a US city, about what this band could potentially do. A six track EP was soon doing the rounds in the early 2000’s, entitled Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks, this was released on Sub Pop no less, so it seemed a given that this band were eventually going to do something lasting. Their break came in 99 with the release of Mirror on Gravity Records, yet more touring followed this release and more local acclaim. They were certainly not all hype though, they just so happened to be one of the more hardworking bands from the city as well.

From their early beginnings in the nineties, they have always had that air of coolness about them, and were the darlings of the trendy scene coming out of New York after all. The Rapture are a Punky, stroke Indie, stroke Dance act hailing from the New York area.

The rapture echoes