shalloboi

shalloboi started in 2001 as an alias for tyler ritter to play music under. 'blue-eyed' was begun around this time and was recorded mostly while tyler was living in a haunted house in kansas city, mo. the first live show was at the end of the year and a few more shows followed in 2002. tyler moved to portland, or in summer of 2002 and continued to play sporadically in portland and in seattle and olympia, wa. 'blue-eyed' was finally finished and released in 2004. during the three years leading up to its release the next two records ('invisible against the sun' and 'petals') were being recorded as well. stefanie goodwin joined in late 2005 after adding vocal harmonies to a few new recordings- her first show in shalloboi was at the knitting factory in l.a. playing bass and singing. in summer of 2005 they moved from portland back to kansas city and embarked on their first tour before moving to chicago. the 'invisible against the sun' ep was finished and mixed and the groundwork for the 'down to sleep' album was begun. once in chicago and securely employed 'invisible against the sun' was released, 'petals' was completed shortly thereafter (following a few technical meltdowns and disasters) and the band played some more out of town dates. 'petals' was released in the autumn after several delays and just too late to be peddled at a series of dates in new york and brooklyn. the 'learning how to crawl' ep had come together almost accidentally by this time and would be released once the finishing touches were added. released in the summer of 2007 it was mostly acoustic-based and abandoned the previous paradigm of rhythmic-loops in favor of live percussion (which was played by stefanie). the songs were also recorded very quickly- nearly every note on the ep was a first-take performance, sometimes done just minutes after a song was written. 'down to sleep' was finished in a fever-ish six month intensive period after a two year gestation process. it was released in the summer of 2008 and featured a reliance on naturally achieved reverb sounds, a new approach and use of strings as well as a massive guitar sound and the first appearance of traditional drums (which had now become stefanie's full-time instrument). in the months after the release of 'down to sleep' the 'dandelions' ep came together in a similar way to 'learning how to crawl' employing a lot of the same elements of 'down to sleep' but paring them down to a more stark and dynamically diverse sound. the strings were pushed more to the front as well. before finishing the recordings shalloboi set out on an ambitious (and largely successful) west coast tour. once back they began attempting shows that utilized a string trio in a live setting- which then became the basis for the next record entitled 'all hope is blind'- which was shaping up to be a stark and minimal affair featuring some of the bands most concise and compressed songs. 'dandelions' was released in late spring of 2009 and was the first shalloboi release to have been produced and mixed entirely in the analog realm. 'all hope is blind' was completed soon afterwards and is planned to be released on vinyl only by the end of the year- the idea being to keep the production, mixing, mastering and listening experience entirely in the analog realm. the mixing process is almost finished. in 2010 shalloboi plans to place more of an emphasis on touring rather than another release.