Echo Lake

Echo Lake

Like photographs of the band – out of focus, grainy, overexposed – Echo Lake makes music for the My Bloody Valentine set. These British bedroom producers began the musical journey of Echo Lake just a year or so ago. On Young Silence, a debut EP for the indie label-blog, No Pain In Pop, Thom Hill call on pools of guitar reverb while singer Linda Jarvis creates a fuzzy and scuzzy vocal accompaniment. It’s quite like a lot of the projects that are coming out now from college kids who read indie blogs and have an old version of Pro Tools on their laptop and a few effects pedals. There’s not too much to distinguish Echo Lake from their peers quite yet, though on the two-minute instrumental “Memory Lapses” they show a lean towards Oneohtrix Point Never’s slow-breathing digi-psych-noise compositions. On album opener “Sunday Evening,” a drum machine clacks along incessantly to Jarvis’s vocalizing, while tinny electric guitars bang away at something like a rhythm. The same drum machine and MBV-thrashing guitars show up on “Young Silence,” with a melody buried even deeper in the mix. The last song, “Buried At Sea,” is a return to OPN’s shimmering noise, but also builds to reveal a beautiful melody. With a few clear directions on display on Young Silence, it will be worth watching to see where this young band goes.