Reading Rainbow derived its moniker from an affectionate nod to the 1980s PBS children’s series of the same name and maintained a MySpace page explicitly honoring the show’s host at www.myspace.com/levarmotherfuckingburton. The project surfaced on the fringes of the lo-fi indie wave toward the close of 2009 after Philadelphia transplants Robbie Garcia and Sarah Everton assembled the duo from the remnants of Forensic Teens, a Richmond, VA no wave band distinguished by its screaming intensity. When the original drummer abandoned a scheduled performance, Everton—who had been generating sounds on a circuit-bent keyboard despite her limited instrumental background—took over the drum chair herself and mastered a bare-bones setup limited to snare and floor tom within roughly two weeks. The pair then adopted a deliberately minimal approach saturated with heavy reverb and analog warmth, committing tracks to tape on a Tascam 388 eight-track reel-to-reel. Their first offerings comprised an EP of raw demos alongside the vinyl LP Mystical Participation, after which they set their sights on issuing Songs to Sing in early 2010.
