The Chapel Hill, NC-based Seth Kauffman first came on the indie rock scene in the late '90s as a member of the roots soul group the Choosy Beggars. Lo-fi, ramshackle, and raw, the Beggars were everything Kauffman loved, but his musical life wasn't always this unrefined. Classical violin lessons began at the age of four, but when he took up the guitar at the age of 15, the blues came into his life, as did a love of groove. Clueing into the feeling of the music he was coming to love, Kauffman "de-learned" his classical training and began to attack numerous new instruments. With Bryan Cates he formed the Choosy Beggars, playing countless shows and releasing four albums. Outside of the band he was taking solo adventures to the African bush, the Swiss Alps, and Jamaica, enjoying the rhythms each journey offered. Back home, he combined ska, mento, blues, Latin jazz, and blues and began recording an album he classified as "lo-fi North Carolina funk." Writing, producing, and playing every instrument, Kauffman gave listeners their first taste in February of 2006 when he released the Powder EP. Beck, G. Love, Tom Waits, the Wailers, the White Stripes, and others were names used to help describe his sound, but each only touched upon one small facet of this complex yet pure music. A month later he made his full-length debut on the Hightone label with Ting, named after a grapefruit soda Kauffman enjoyed while in Jamaica. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi