The Mountain Goats

Few American indie acts have built a catalogue as stubbornly personal as the Mountain Goats, and for most of their existence the band was, in practice, one man. John Darnielle formed the project in Claremont, California, and for years the plural name was a bit of a wry joke, since he recorded and performed alone. His early work was made on a cassette boombox, with hiss and room noise left in and songs often captured within days of being written. Later he began working with a rotating cast of collaborators, but the songwriting remains the throughline, and the band is now based in Durham, North Carolina.

The early period produced a torrent of cassette and vinyl releases, including The Hound Chronicles and Yam, the King of Crops, before the full-length Zopilote Machine arrived in 1994. A turn towards a more polished sound came with 2002's Tallahassee, the first record made with a full band in a studio and the first released on the label 4AD. That same year brought All Hail West Texas, which the band's founder regards as the culmination of his lo-fi method. In 2004, We Shall All Be Healed followed, a deeply autobiographical record set among friends caught up in methamphetamine addiction, and its successor The Sunset Tree dealt with Darnielle's childhood under an abusive stepfather.