Heralding from Omaha, folk/rock pop group Echo Farm is trying to bring art back into the studios.

After spending over eighteen months recording their first full-length release, “Undone,” the five members of Echo Farm have raised the bar of recording for local unsigned bands.

“There’s an old Van Gogh quote that we like to use regarding our album,” vocalist Ariann Anderson said. “It says, ‘A piece of art is never finished; it’s merely settled upon.’ I never really understood the meaning of that until we got into the studio and started recording ‘Undone.’ It took us a long time to do it because we all wanted to produce something that we could go back to and listen to months later.”

Many months and gigs later, the independent album is critically acclaimed and listener-worthy. Receiving high marks from the Lincoln Reader, the Omaha World Herald, the Creightonian, as well as several independent magazines, “Undone” made a quick impression locally.

Recorded at Warehouse Productions, mastered at Future Disc in L.A. and engineered/produced by Jim Holman, the album was recorded and funded entirely by the band.

“Jim was just amazing,” Anderson said. “He became such a great friend of all of ours, and we love the work that he did.

“We tried to earn money for the album the respectable way. Which is part of the reason that it took us 18 months to record the album. We’d play a show for $200, and then put that money towards the album and kept on doing that. We decided to do that as opposed to borrowing the money from a friend or taking out a loan or whatever.

“We just worked and worked until we got something that we were really proud of, especially soundwise.”

Soundly speaking, the band planted its roots in high school. Anderson went to school with vocalist Rebecca Rotert. Although both participated in choir and band together, the two made no official musical connections.

It wasn’t until Anderson went on to hook up with guitarist Allison Ravnholdt that the two reunited.

“It started out with the three girls — Allison, Rebecca, and myself,” Anderson said. “I sort of hooked up with Rebecca again years later after high school and started to play some music, and it was going pretty well. So we added some bass and drums and one thing led to another. Echo Farm was formed.”

Filling the lineup was jazz fanatic Quinn Sikora on drums and former Beef Curtains bassist Brad Dienstbier. The five went on to mold Echo Farm’s unique sound into “smooth groovin’ folk-twinged pop,” according to the Album Network.

Lyrically sound and conveying emotions through lower and more striking vocal styles, Anderson and Rotert provided audiences with equally appealing vocal performances.

With a wide variety of musical influences, Echo Farm brings variety to its music.

“Our influences are so incredibly diverse. Our drummer, Quinn, is a big old-school jazz fanatic. Whenever we go on a road trip, his CD collection consists mainly of old jazz records and The Police,” Anderson said.

“I know that as far as the whole band goes, bands like Fleetwood Mac have been an incredible inspiration and kind of actually an aspiration for us, I think. I’m a big fan of Ani DiFranco, and I think that a lot of my vocal stylings kind of reflect that.”

Turning up in big smoky bars, tiny coffee houses, lush lounges, river boats, punk-rock dives and towns big and small, Echo Farm has been willingly accepted by fans outside of Omaha.

“You know, the crowds who appreciate what we do are so diverse,” Anderson said. “We’ve got everyone from the kids who hang out at the sports bars to the folks at classy little piano bar restaurants. The kids love to get up and dance.”

Echo Farm has played gigs at several venues in Des Moines, including Java Joes, Court Avenue Brewing Company and The Garden, as well as several others.

“Iowa, more specifically Des Moines, has been the most receptive place that we’ve played,” Anderson said. “We’ve also played in Chicago and Minneapolis. We seem to get a tremendous response out of town.

“I don’t want to put down the Omaha music scene because I think it’s great, but I think that it’s becoming a little bit saturated with live music,” Anderson explained.

“With 311 and several other big bands from here, I just think that the fans are kind of waiting to be spoon-fed the next big thing. They’re not quite as willing as college towns are to go out and look for good stuff. That’s no fault of Omaha’s, it’s just a plus when you’re in places like Ames, Des Moines and Madison.”

Echo Farm has an impressive concert repertoire, having shared the stage with the likes of Ani DiFranco, The Neilds, Trip Shakespeare, Matt Wilson, Karen Capaldi, Tim Mahoney and the Meanies, Tina and the B-Sides, Huffamoose, Tribe 8, Patti Rothberg, Marlee Macleod, Vervow, Frogpond, The Sheridans, and 311.

“Echo Farm didn’t actually play with all of these bands,” Anderson went on to explain. “But with all of our members coming from different bands, we have collectively shared the stage with a lot of different bands.

“For example, shortly before we all got together, Brad played with a band called The Beef Curtains and they did a stint with 311. Those things just kind of happen. We will look back and be like ‘Wow, remember when we played with them?'”

With firm foundations and a successful past, Echo Farm has its sights set on the future. Members of the band are currently trying to secure a spot on the Lilith Fair Tour, which is rumored to be passing through the Omaha area in the future.

“We’d love to open for Fleetwood Mac,” Anderson said. “I think we would also fit in really well with the Lilith Fair tour, considering our style. We’re honored to play with anybody. We just fit in so many different areas, it’d be difficult to name where we would fit best.”

The group has, however, found several situations where it doesn’t seem to fare well.

“Based on our groovin’ folk-twinged pop thing, we have a song called ‘This Hungry Girl,'” Anderson explained. “During the chorus of the song, it gets pretty hard and heavy, which isn’t really along our lines.

“We were playing a bar and a very intoxicated table of Creighton University fraternity boys decided that this would be the perfect song to form a mosh pit to. The stage was only a foot off the ground and suddenly our monitors were coming crashing down, and our speakers came crashing down on us. The stage was a mess. It was just crazy. ‘Mosh pit’ and ‘Echo Farm’ are two things that you normally don’t find in the same sentence.”

Echo Farm will bring its “smooth groovin’ folk-tinged pop” to Boheme tonight at 9. There is a $4 cover at the door.