THERE’S a moment about halfway through Melody’s Echo Chamber’s second album, Bon Voyage, when the drums fade out and a familiar voice comes through.

It’s POND’s Nick Allbrook and his brief spoken-word interlude – delivered in a pronounced Aussie accent – begins with the “memory of making love” and winds up with a vision on his own death. “To be declared brain dead or heart dead in the Vatican,” he says, before an acoustic guitar puts an end to the morbid fantasy.

Melody’s Echo Chamber’s auteur Melody Prochet lovingly describes it as “mad poetry”, and it was recorded in a Stockholm studio while Nick was on tour with POND and Melody was deep into recording the follow-up to her 2012 debut.

Described as a collaborative record with Dungen’s Reine Fiske and The Amazing’s Fredrik Swahn, Bon Voyage was almost derailed by a serious accident from which Melody has only now recovered.

In her only Australian interview, she speaks with her friend Nick Allbrook about the early beginnings of their friendship, primal zodiacs, favourite flowers, Nordic fantasies, and how music helped her deal with immense personal pain.

Even on email, it’s clear they share a beautiful friendship. Enjoy.