News Echo Lake

See, the purpose of First On is to let you know about bands who are just arriving on the scene, of whom you’re unlikely to have heard of before. But if within the last seven days you’ve had your internet working and your head click on properly, Echo Lake should be familiar to you. The day after we did this interview with them, they produced something of a viral sensation: ‘Young Silence’’s video, uniquely produced using a Microsoft Kinect, gained huge views within hours of its unveiling. This is just the latest in a long line of well-deserved breakthroughs for the five-piece.

It began as a form of comfort, to some extent: “When we decided to upload a few of our recordings online, we only did it to cheer ourselves up after a bad day and didn’t expect anything to come of it” says Linda, the name behind the voice that melts within ‘Young Silence’’s dramatic, thrashing atmosphere. Then, quite out of the blue, came of rush of blog appreciation and Echo Lake suddenly meant something; “We woke up one morning to blog posts on 20jazzfunkgreats, Gorilla vs Bear, Delicious Scopitone and Rose Quartz. That morning we went in to college, everyone was freaking out about deadlines but Thom and I didn’t care. It was awesome. We just went home to finish recording another song.”

Shortly after came an agreement with No Pain In Pop to release a debut EP, with the same title as that of their biggest single to date. Linda admits to her delight at working with a label who she’s spent the last couple of years following avidly; “ I’m really pleased our first release is on such a lovely label, they’ve been incredibly great to us and it’s been a lot of fun working with them.” The EP release comes after a frantic year of harnessing initial buzz and working on live shows - something which they hadn’t even begun to think about before being signed; ‘When we first got offered shows, we didn’t feel ready yet and didn’t want to rush in to playing live…[Now]Our live set as a 5 piece is quite different to how we sound recorded. It’s very loud and we really enjoy playing together.”

That recorded sound Linda speaks of is what prickles the ears when you first listen to Echo Lake; there’s a brash, thick wall of reverberation that gives no introductions, simply entering in the most gung-ho manner possible. It’s immediate and everything else about Echo Lake follows a similar trend; coming out of nowhere and settling in within seconds.