Thee More Shallows

In 2001 three musicians converged in San Francisco after crossing paths at a concert: Michigan transplant Dee Kesler, North Carolina native Brian Fraser, and Californian Jason Gonzales. Operating at first under the name Thee Shallows, they received a cease-and-desist from another act and adopted the moniker Thee More Shallows. Their debut, the 2002 album A History of Sport Fishing, was tracked in rented studio space across two weeks, with Fraser and Gonzales supplying drums, bass, keyboards, and samples while Kesler covered the remaining parts. The band later constructed its own studio for the follow-up, granting extra room for editing and refinement. That freedom stretched the sessions across nearly three years before More Deep Cuts finally surfaced in 2005. The next year brought the EP Monkey vs. Shark, which included a remix by Odd Nosdam; Kesler had already appeared on the producer’s 2005 release Burner. Signing with Anticon, the group issued its third album, Book of Bad Breaks, in spring 2007, a record that moved away from shoegaze textures.