Japanther

Ian Vanek and Matt Reilly were students at New York's Pratt Institute when they started playing together as Japanther in 2001. Though Vanek mans the drums and Reilly plays mostly bass, both sing and manipulate a battery of synthesizer and tape effects to achieve the band's noisy art rock fusion. Their debut, a homemade CD-R titled The Last of the Living Land Pirates, appeared in 2001, but the first widely available release, the South of Northport EP, came the following year. Between 2002 and 2007 they stayed stayed busy by releasing six LPs and several EPs, touring widely, and collaborating on a handful of acclaimed multi-media projects.