Skeletons sounds like the organized chaos of a New York City block compressed into a pop song. It is a dizzying blend of Afrobeat-inspired guitar scratches, free-jazz horn sections, and a percussion section that seems to use every object in the room. The music is constantly moving, shifting its weight from foot to foot with a nervous, electric energy that refuses to settle into a predictable pattern.
What makes them distinctive is the way Matt Mehlan bridges the gap between high-concept improvisation and accessible songwriting. While the textures are dense and the rhythms are complex, there is a core of melodic curiosity that keeps the listener grounded. It is maximalist music that feels handmade and intimate, often recorded in DIY spaces like the Silent Barn, giving it a gritty, lived-in quality that studio-slick experimental acts lack.
Start with the album 'Lucas' for the definitive introduction to their kitchen-sink aesthetic. It perfectly captures the moment where their indie-rock roots collided with massive global rhythms and big-band ambitions. If you prefer something slightly more focused but no less strange, 'Git' offers a more electronic-leaning entry point into their idiosyncratic world.
Skeletons (also known as Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys, Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities, and Skeleton$) are an American entertainment unit from Oberlin, Ohio. They currently live in New York City. Skeletons began as the solo project of Chicago native musician and filmmaker Matt Mehlan in 2001. In 2003, Mehlan released the albums Life and the Afterbirth and I'm At the Top of the World on Shinkoyo, an Oberlin College-based music collective known for its focus on group improvisation and DIY ethics. Following the name change from Skeletons to Skeletons & The Girl-Faced Boys and the addition of a rotating cast of collaborators, the full-length Git was released on Ghostly International Records in June 2005. In 2007, Skeletons released the album Lucas, also on Ghostly, under the name Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities. The album was recorded in the band's converted Queens warehouse studio and home, The Silent Barn. Lucas was described by Pitchfork as "an outsize global-a-go-go mélange of unceasing polyrhythms, Afrobeat guitars, free jazz, and Timbaland's approach to kitchen-sink percussion." A full-length entitled Money was released November 4, 2008, on Tomlab. In 2009, Skeletons began playing occasional shows as a large ensemble titled Skeletons Big Band. Some of the compositions played by the Skeletons Big Band were eventually recorded and released on Skeletons' most recent album PEOPLE, released on April 26, 2011. The rest of the material from the Skeleton Big Band shows will be released later in 2011 for a Skeletons Big Band album. Skeletons' most recent release was a full-length called If the Cat Come Back, released on September 11, 2020. The album features Mehlan playing a custom-built instrument called the "Shtar".
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