Skeletons

Skeletons is an art rock group from Oberlin, United States, active from 2002 to the present and centred on Matthew Mehlan. The project begins in Oberlin, Ohio, as the work of Mehlan, who uses electronics as part of an idiosyncratic pop approach. It appears under several names, including Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities, Skeletons & The Girl-Faced Boys, Skeletons Big Band and Skeleton$.

Early releases and label work

The first phase of the project includes the albums I’m at the Top of the World and Life and the After Birth, both issued on Shinkoyo, a label that Mehlan co-founds. Shinkoyo also serves as one of the band’s later recording outlets.

Line-up and collaborators

Mehlan later works with Carson Garhart, Severiano Martinez, Jason McMahon and Johnny Misheff. The group records for Ghostly International, Tomlab, Crammed Discs, Altin Village and Mine, and Shinkoyo, and it tours internationally in its various forms.

Other uses of the name

The name Skeletons also appears elsewhere in music, including as a pseudonym used by Benedic Lamdin for the track “Smile” on Impossible Ark Records, as the name of a UK sludge/black metal band from Merseyside, as a Sheffield rock band, as an Adelaide-based pop group, and as a defunct hardcore band from Redding, California.