Shalloboi started out as a solo project for Tyler Ritter out of necessity. He began to play live under the name in the winter of 2001- playing his expansive, droning, loud/quiet songs using a bowed guitar and a sampler. ‘blue-eyed’ came together slowly over the next few years overlapping with a move from Kansas City, MO to Portland, OR and was released in late 2004. Stefanie Goodwin joined playing bass and handling some backing vocal duties in early 2005. ‘invisible against the sun’ was released in the winter of 2005 after the band moved from Portland to Chicago following a brief but fruitful summer tour. ‘petals’ followed in 2006 (which had also taken three years to gestate) and ‘learning how to crawl’ in 2007. ‘down to sleep’ was released in 2008 and represented a significant shift in direction with Stefanie switching completely from bass to drums and taking up a larger share of the vocal duties. The recording process was more organic and less dependent on loops and processed effects. ‘dandelions’ followed in summer of 2009 after a west coast tour in the fall of 2008 taking the sound of ‘down to sleep’ and stretching it into something more instrumentally sparse and also placing greater emphasis on the use of strings which lead on to ‘all hope is blind’ which was completed and released
digitally at the end of 2009. The songs on ‘all hope is blind’ are the most compact, minimal and restrained music that shalloboi have ever attempted. Many of the tracks were recorded live with more of an emphasis on a full band sound. In 2010 they plan to place more of an emphasis on touring. The next release is planned for 2011 and will be a series of 7”s tentatively titled ‘field of flowers.’
