The core of the Chicago-based Lost Cartographers came together in 2006, when neighbors Erin Fusco (keyboards & vocals) and Aaron Rester (guitar, banjo, harmonica) began rehearsing with lead vocalist Gabrielle Schafer in the attic of the Roscoe Village building they both called home. Original bassist Lizzy Sustar and drummer Jason Haaheim joined not long after, and the band played its first show in 2007.

After Sustar left to attend graduate school, acclaimed bassist Karl E. H. Seigfried joined the band. In 2008, they went into Delmark Records' Riverside Studio with live recording specialist Eric Butkus (Pedro the Lion, Detholz!). A marathon weekend recording session resulted in the band's debut album, "Walk On," released by Imaginary Chicago Records in 2009.

Critics have compared the Cartographers' first album to "a female-fronted Wilco circa A.M.," and they have garnered glowing comparisons to fellow Chicagoans The Handsome Family and Freakwater. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.