Gregor Samsa

Originating in Richmond, Virginia, the ensemble Gregor Samsa drew its sonic approach from the pioneering British shoegazer movement of earlier decades, though it bears no connection to the unrelated Illinois band that shared the name during the 1990s. Champ Bennett and Nikki King established the group in 2000, selecting its title from the central figure in Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis. While Bennett and King formed the unchanging core, roughly thirty additional players rotated through the ranks across subsequent years. Their music incorporated a Southern inflection that introduced an undercurrent of dark paranoia. The first release arrived as a self-titled EP on Iodine Recordings dated June 11, 2002. A concise full-length effort, 27:36—its title reflecting the recording’s duration—appeared on March 18, 2003. The Kora Records issued the more expansive follow-up, 55:12, on March 7, 2006. Later that spring, Robotic Empire put out the split EP Red Sparowes/Gregor Samsa on May 23. The third studio album, Rest, reached stores on May 27, 2008. By then the active roster comprised Bennett and King—who had wed in September 2007—alongside William Bennett, Cory Bise, Toby Driver, and Mia Matsumiya, and the band had relocated its operations to Brooklyn, New York.