Biography
Radar Bros. formed in Los Angeles around guitarist Jim Putnam (Medicine, Maids of Gravity), bassist Senon Williams (Dengue Fever), and drummer Steve Goodfriend. Their opening move was a self-titled EP on Fingerpaint Records that quickly built an audience across the U.K. By 1996 the trio had moved to Restless Records and delivered a self-titled LP whose layered guitar textures and dusky melodies earned them a slowcore/sadcore reputation and placed them alongside Acetone and Low while recalling the atmospheres of Neil Young, Brian Wilson, and Pink Floyd.
Singing Hatchet arrived in 1999, after which the band toured extensively through North America, the U.K., and Europe. Three years passed before the sunlit follow-up appeared; And the Surrounding Mountains, a Crazy Horse-meets-Pink Floyd statement, added brightness to Merge Records’ spring 2002 schedule. The group remained with Merge for The Fallen Leaf Pages in 2005 and for Auditorium in 2008, the latter marking the first appearance of guitarist/keyboardist Jeff Palmer.
By the time The Illustrated Garden surfaced in 2010, the lineup had settled around Putnam, bassist Be Hussey, and drummer Stevie Treichel. The band returned in 2013 with its eighth album, Eight, whose cover art nodded to the artwork of Joni Mitchell’s breakthrough album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
Singing Hatchet arrived in 1999, after which the band toured extensively through North America, the U.K., and Europe. Three years passed before the sunlit follow-up appeared; And the Surrounding Mountains, a Crazy Horse-meets-Pink Floyd statement, added brightness to Merge Records’ spring 2002 schedule. The group remained with Merge for The Fallen Leaf Pages in 2005 and for Auditorium in 2008, the latter marking the first appearance of guitarist/keyboardist Jeff Palmer.
By the time The Illustrated Garden surfaced in 2010, the lineup had settled around Putnam, bassist Be Hussey, and drummer Stevie Treichel. The band returned in 2013 with its eighth album, Eight, whose cover art nodded to the artwork of Joni Mitchell’s breakthrough album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.