Expansive indie chamber pop seven-piece Anathallo was conceived in vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Matt Joynt's hometown of Mt. Pleasant, MI in the autumn of 2000. With the band's name taken from a Greek word for "blooming again", over the next six years the group was reborn several times, with seven of the members leaving the band as Joynt led the lineups through a succession of EPs. In 2006, after releasing Floating World, a conceptual album loosely based on a Japanese fairy tale, Joynt was convinced by his artist friend Tim Lowly to move to Chicago.