About Saintseneca
Hometown
Columbus, OH, United States
Formed
2007
Genre
Alternative
An ambitious and eclectic indie outfit from Columbus, Ohio, Saintseneca toiled for a number of years developing their sound on the national indie scene before earning widespread critical acclaim for their third album, 2015's Such Things. Behind founder and frontman Zac Little, they melded folk music from Appalachian and international traditions to postmodern pop, psych, and acoustically driven indie rock. After a pair of EPs and a full-length on smaller labels, they signed with the well-established Anti- Records in 2013, simultaneously forging a longterm partnership with producer Mike Mogis, who helped Little guide the band toward a more pop-oriented approach.
Zac Little had been playing in folk bands with friends from a small Ohio town. The group moved to Columbus to attend college and began playing dozens of house concerts. Their self-titled debut EP was issued in 2009, and by then the lineup had changed. A second EP, the cassette-only Gray Flag, was released in 2010 and Saintseneca became a national touring ensemble, playing wherever and whenever they could, working college radio hard and continually shifting their lineup.
They were signed to Anti- in 2012. Their debut full-length album, Last, was released in the spring of 2013. By this time, the band's lineup had changed yet again and Little remained the only original member. He immediately began recording a follow-up album in a friend's attic. The early-2010s lineup -- Little, Steve Ciolek, Maryn Jones, Jon Meador, and touring member Matt O'Conke -- also collaborated with other musicians. After filling a computer's hard drive with songs and sounds, Saintseneca moved their operation to Nebraska to work with producer Mike Mogis, where they revisited each song utilizing a plethora of electric instruments in their mix. Anti- released Dark Arc in the spring of 2014.
Little decided to further challenge himself by writing songs that could more easily be identified with pop. To that end, he again worked with Mogis and a small cast of like-minded players to cut dozens of songs in a more melodic pop mode. Whittled down to a more succinct 15 tunes, the finished album was issued in 2015 as Such Things. In a move typical of their eclectic approach, Saintseneca's next release was an EP of strange but spirited original Christmas songs called The Mallwalker, which appeared in late 2016. Centered around the central theme of memory, the band's ambitious fourth album (and third with Mogis in the producer's seat), Pillar of Na, arrived in the summer of 2018. ~ Thom Jurek
Members of Saintseneca include, or have included, Yowler.
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