Skull Tape

When the Mae Shi disbanded after completing their final album, 2008’s HLLYH, Brad Breeck pursued a career in composing, writing music for Apple MacBook Air commercials and the soundtracks to Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny and the Nickelodeon TV series Fanboy & Chum Chum. However, Breeck continued making music for his own personal expression. Fascinated by the late 2000s/early 2010s debates about health care, the economy, and other issues — which he saw as related to a larger theme of social Darwinism — he wrote and recorded a set of songs setting his thoughts on these themes to eclectic, punk-tinged pop that picked up where the Mae Shi left off. Dubbing his project Skull Tape, he recruited XBXRX's Kyle Mabson and Vice Cooler on drums and guitar, respectively; Robotanists' Daniel Deblanke on guitar; Robin Williams on Fire's Dalton Blanco on drums, and Signals' Jon Gray on synths. The results, The Invisible Hand and the Descent of Man, arrived in April 2011.