Biography
Andrew Peterson records under the alias The Kallikak Family. While living in Chicago he completed the project's debut album, The Vineland Social Maturity Scale, which On Purpose Records issued. A press biography characterized the disc as "an experimental psych-folk/noise album revolving around a sociological text about feeble-mindedness." The group performed throughout the Chicago area and at venues across the United States, emphasizing ambient textures and performance-art elements in its presentations. Peterson later relocated to Portland, OR, where he spent 2003 through 2005 shaping material for a second album, May 23rd 2007. That record was described as exploring "the meaning of specific days and locations in the life of one person, all leading up to May 23rd 2007, the date on which a fortune teller predicted the artist's death." Tell-All Records released it on August 23, 2005. The Kallikak Family toured during summer 2005; afterward Peterson intended to make his home in Berkeley, CA.