Kevin Bronson on June 18th, 2019

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San Diego trio EST makes highly conceptual, equally immersive and glacially brooding shoegaze in the vein of experimental bands from the ’90s (think some on the roster of 4AD). Their name is an acronym for the Erhard Seminar Training fad of the 1970s and ’80, or an allusion to “Electronic Social Transformation,” or a reference to Expressed Sequence Tags, which are DNA code that identify every organism as unique. And “uniquely beautiful,” as the band comprised of plant scientists says.

The trio — Charlotte Noelle Miller, Christopher Ryan Braciszewski and John Christopher Harris II — crafts their intricately layered sound using plenty of reverb and twining vocals, some sung and others spoken. Think of it as existentialism in slow motion. The dirgey “Every Echo” is the lead song on the forthcoming EP “The Everies” and a paean to womanhood.

“‘Every Echo’ speaks from the mind of a woman and from the heart of a mother,” Miller says. “It tells the story of her taking the first steps to freeing herself (and her daughters) from a toxic home environment. Writing this song was an attempt to understand what she went through and an opportunity to say thank you. I often find myself thinking about how she must have felt in the moment where she knew she had to leave. Every echo celebrates this moment. It highlights female vulnerability and celebrates female strength. It speaks of what I hope was an empowering realization, or at the very least a hope, that things could be different. It speaks of a moment of change.

“I often wish I could have been her friend during these moments. I hope she knows that, even through child eyes, we knew she was doing something incredible.”

The band travels to New York this week for shows Thursday (Brooklyn’s Hart Bar), Sunday (at Manhattan’s Berlin) and Monday (at Brooklyn Bazaar).

||| Stream: “Every Echo”

||| Also: Watch the video for “Every Girl”