Originally hailing from New York, Ryan Gebhardt began releasing music with his band The Humble Cheaters in 2016. After releasing two albums, he embarked on what was then a solo endeavor, Stanley. His self-titled debut LP, Stanley, was released on Forged Artifacts (USA) & King Forward Records (NL) in the fall of 2017 and coincided with Ryan's move to Minneapolis.
Isolation has never been a concern during Ben Astrachan’s pandemic, thanks to the five friends (and one cat) with whom he shares an apartment in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. All of his roommates are artists of some kind, including romantic partner Sivan, a puppeteer and poet, and musician Austin Koenigstein, Ben’s partner in the folk-pop duo Berta Bigtoe.
Astrachan’s creative community is all over his self-titled album, literally. As the songwriter-guitarist was recording to analog tape in his home studio, he would often arrange multi-part harmonies inspired by childhood choirs and group vocals like Funkadelic’s “Can You Get To That.”