Sleepy Kitty is more than a band: it’s an all-in multi-media artistic collaboration. After spending the ’90s drumming in Harvey Danger (London/Polygram), and the ’00s in Chicago’s Bound Stems(Flameshovel), Sult heard Brubeck’s voice in her band, Stiletto Attack, and couldn’t shake it. Strictly for fun, they started mashing weird sound experiments into their natural pop instincts, and quickly had a batch of art-cracked, catchy songs. At the same time, they were designing and printing t-shirts and rock posters together. They called it all Sleepy Kitty—and they now run both their band and their print shop out of a formerly abandoned brewery on St. Louis’s Cherokee Street, which has since become the city’s unofficial printers’ row (you can check out their print work at sleepykittyarts.com). After two self-released EPs—Hustlin’ Kets (2007) and What I Learned This Summer (2009)—and some great opening slots for the Dresden Dolls, Chuck Berry, and Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, Sleepy Kitty caught the ear of Euclid Records’ Joe Schwab. The band’s live show is a whirlwind: Brubeck loops her vocals live, crafting walls of girl-group harmonies above the tube-driven blast of her vintage Super Reverb. Sult plays at the edge of the stage with her—when he can contain himself to his drum throne. Infinity City transmits the power of their live show but reveals their canny control of pop architecture: “Gimme a Chantz!” opens with a theatrical flourish before bounding into a crowd of surging ’90s-era harmonies; garage-cranked “Speaking Politely” makes way for the delicately observed details of city-breakup ode “NYC Really Has It All,” and the Velvets/Fab Four mash note “Seventeen” revels in their influences.
