The Ruminant Band

(Release Date: 08/04/09)

Fruit Bats reassembled in late 2008 after a 4 year stint since their formerly released album titled Spelled in Bones, released in 2005. Their latest album, The Ruminant Band was recorded with Graeme Gibson at Clava in Chicago, the same studio where their album Echolocation had been recorded nine years before.

Besides the aforementioned “zoology rock,” the two best obscure genres the Fruit Bats have been linked to by the press are “bootgazer,” and “rustic pop.”

Bio

Fruit Bats are Eric D. Johnson, Christopher Sherman, Ron Lewis, Graeme Gibson and Sam Wagster.

Fruit Bats started in the mid 1990’s as the four-track project of Eric D. Johnson. The name “Fruit Bats” was actually one of many cryptic monikers scrawled on the cassettes. Somehow that one stuck. Some of the other band names included “Holiday Inn,” and “Senseless Tripe.”

In early 2000, Johnson joined the cast of characters that made up Califone and the whole Perishable Records family. It was this kinship with a bunch of like minded folks that coaxed the Fruit Bats from out of the bedroom and turned the shy lo-fi project into a real band.

Brian Deck produced the first record, Echolocation, which featured hi-fi versions of many of the old four-track tunes. The album sold poorly, but garnered rave reviews in places like Mojo and The Village Voice, the latter calling it “a mini-masterpiece of zoology rock.” Shows were offered, and a band was hastily put together. The lineup would remain ever shifting for the next eight years or so.

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The Ruminant Band

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