Artist
The Postal Service
Seattle, United States • Formed 2001
The Postal Service is a music group from Seattle, United States, active since 2001. Their discography on Gatefold includes 5 records.
5
Albums tracked
177
In collections
2001
Since
Biography
The Postal Service was an American indie electropop band which formed in Seattle, Washington in 2001. The group consisted of Ben Gibbard (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jimmy Tamborello (production, programming, synthesizers) and Jenny Lewis (vocals, guitar). The band released one album "Give Up" in 2003 and were active until 2005. The band reunited in 2013 for a reunion tour before permanently disbanding that August. The band started life as a side project for singer Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie and producer Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel
The Arc of The Postal Service
The pivots — what forced The Postal Service to reinvent.
The Mail-Order Blueprint
Gibbard and Tamborello first worked together on a track for Dntel's Life Is Full of Possibilities in 2001. That single song, '(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan,' clicked so fast they decided to make a full record. Distance forced them into a strict asynchronous writing process. Tamborello would program complex, glitch-heavy instrumental DAT tapes in Los Angeles and mail them to Seattle. Gibbard then edited the arrangements, added his signature melancholic melodies, and mailed the tapes back to Sub Pop.
The Platinum Surprise
When Give Up dropped in February 2003, nobody expected a gold record, let alone a platinum one. The band only did a short club tour with Jenny Lewis on backing vocals and Rilo Kiley's drum tech trying to keep the MIDI gear from crashing. The album took off on college radio and commercial alternative stations through sheer word of mouth. The success caught everyone off guard, eventually shifting the entire landscape of indie pop toward laptop production.
Influences
- The Notwist — Gibbard and Tamborello have both cited the German indie-electronic outfit's 2002 masterpiece Neon Golden as a direct reference point for their sound. You can hear the influence in how they blend warm acoustic instruments with cold, micro-programmed digital clicks. The emotional weight of the record relies heavily on this specific contrast.
- New Order — Gibbard has repeatedly noted Peter Hook's melodic basslines and Bernard Sumner's melancholic synth-pop vocal delivery as major touchstones. On 'We Will Become Silhouettes,' the driving synth rhythm and the juxtaposition of dark lyrics with upbeat dance tempos come straight from the New Order playbook.
- Björk — Tamborello was heavily influenced by the micro-beats and domestic sample textures of Björk's 2001 album Vespertine. You hear this in the delicate, crackling static and organic, tiny percussive loops that anchor 'The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.' It is the sound of household objects turned into rhythm.
- Dntel — This is Tamborello's own project, which served as the literal birthplace of the band. The song '(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan' proved that Gibbard's indie-rock voice could cut through dense, experimental IDM production. Without this specific collaboration, the Postal Service project would have never been conceived.
- The Cure — Gibbard's writing style borrows the direct emotional vulnerability and synth-heavy pop structures of Robert Smith. The band even recorded a cover of 'Suddenly Last Summer' by the Motels, which drew heavily on the gloomy, chorus-pedal guitar textures of early Cure records.
Discography
Their records — most-collected first.
Related artists
Frequent collaborators
Around the web
Follow every record they touch.
Start your shelf and Gatefold tracks The Postal Service's new pressings, tour dates, and the whole discography — automatically.
Start your shelf →Free forever. Works with 10 records or 10,000.