Pele

In 1997 guitarist Chris Rosenau joined forces with bassist Scott Schoenbeck and drummer Jon Mueller to launch the Milwaukee post-rock outfit Pele. Two weeks ahead of tracking their debut album Teaching the History of Teaching Geography, the group added former Promise Ring member Scott Beschta on keyboards, an instrument that soon dominated both the LP and its companion remix disc People Living with Animals. Animals Kill People. Once the sessions wrapped, Schoenbeck stepped into Beschta’s vacated bass chair within the Promise Ring while Beschta pursued separate endeavors; Rosenau and Mueller then enlisted bassist Matt Tennessen, a former Tussin collaborator, to cut 1999’s Elephant and 2000’s The Nudes. Following the release of these intricate and demanding albums, the band stepped back from the studio to focus on touring and further composition. Enemies, captured inside a women’s shower room, reached the public in fall 2002 via Polyvinyl Records. The group disbanded in 2004, after which Rosenau, Mueller, and laptopist Jon Minor continued as Collections of Colonies of Bees while Tennessen joined Paris, Texas. Seven years and thirteen releases later, the 2009 anthology A Scuttled Bender in a Watery Closet surveyed the band’s catalog.