The Echo Falls is a folk-rock trio from the San Francisco Bay Area. They are Alex Mandel (guitar, piano, vocals, songwriting), David Brandt (drums, vocals, glockenspeil, vibes), and David Arend (double bass). For the past two years, The Echo Falls have been woodshedding, creating a new acoustic sound together and arranging a repertoire of Mandel's songs.
The Echo Falls' music conveys the feeling of an organic and secluded place. Their sound is based in classic folk-rock, country and bossa-nova traditions, infused with rich harmonic passages reminiscent of the classical romantics. Beautiful melodies bear witty poetry that probes deeply and humorously into contemporary themes. The group has an intimate, natural chemistry and a palette that draws from an eclectic array of genres while emphasizing the visceral warmth of acoustic voice, strings, wood, skins and metal.
The story of The Echo Falls is one of paths diverging and converging.
Mandel and Brandt hit it off grandly in nursery school and were close childhood friends. At five years old, they would sit on a bench at a local reservoir and play music for curious pedestrians and joggers - David playing percussion on coffee cans with pencils and Alex playing his Dad's guitar on his lap because he was too little to get his arm around the body. They spent hours listening to their parents record collections between their rambunctious games and pranks including, at one point, sneaking around the home of The Cars' Ric Ocasek. Relocation brought about a parting of ways at age 9.
In 1990 each of the members entered Oberlin College and/or Conservatory of Music in Ohio. David Brandt and Alex Mandel were roommates and had a band for a year before Brandt transferred away. Mandel continued his studies of blues, jazz, World, and classical music, performing country music with members of Trans Am. David Arend entered Oberlin's double degree program in English and classical double bass and played in a series of rock bands and jazz combos. He remembers seeing Brandt among the local jazz musicians and admiring Mandel's music-making. Later, Mandel and Arend got to know one another as housemates, playing in their living room and recording a couple of songs together.
David Brandt went on to assimilate the aesthetics of the free-jazz pioneers Bill Dixon and Milford Graves at Bennington College and thereafter worked the New York City avant-garde jazz scene as a percussionist/composer and also served as Vice-President of the arts coalition Jump Arts [www.jumparts.org]. He was the original drummer of Applesaucer. He recently toured with afrobeat master Oghene Kologbo (tenor sax and guitar with Fela Kuti), and currently plays with local space-rock mavericks Mushroom and improv groups The AllOnes and The Bakers' Union.
David Arend earned a master's degree from Juilliard and spent several years freelancing in New York City, where he worked with wonderful classical instrumentalists and composers including collaborations with Ornette Coleman and Bobby McFerrin. He now plays with the San Francisco Symphony and the Oakland East Bay Symphony among many other local orchestras, explores trip-hop and electro-acoustic grooves with Mason Bates [www.masonicelectronica.com], is involved with experimental projects with composers Marisol Jimenez, Ali Momeni and Kevin Adams, and has played and recorded with avant-garde jazz groups Telepathy and Gubbish.
Alex Mandel went on to lead the critically-acclaimed San Francisco Bay Area pop-rock quartet The Fingers, who over the course of nine years released three records and gigged extensively in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. The Fingers performed at The Fillmore, Great American Music Hall, Slim's, Cafe Du Nord, The Viper Room and elsewhere, with a diverse list of bands. They received glowing notices in the SF Examiner, Bay Guardian, BAM and elsewhere. Their music has been featured on TV shows (including Everwood), documentaries, and the forthcoming film Tracy.
Eventually finding themselves similarly situated, these old friends have come together as musical conspirators.
