While still touched by the woozy, ungrounded approach of the earlier albums, the songwriting was hookier and more focused, beginning a move away from experimental urges and into more polished material that would continue with subsequent albums. The label started Phosphorescent's run with the release of third album Pride in the fall of 2007. The project reached the next level when Houck signed to Secretly Canadian subsidiary label Dead Oceans.
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By this time Houck had left Georgia for Brooklyn, New York. This style informed 2003 debut album A Hundred Times or More and its 2005 follow-up Aw Come Aw Wry. Early output from the project was at times more drifting and experimental, filtering Houck's plaintive folk and country songwriting through layers of fuzzy production. 2000's self-released Hipolit and a tour of Spain and England would be the only activity as Fillup Shack before Houck took on the Phosphorescent moniker. He moved to Athens, Georgia around the turn of the century and began making music solo under the name Fillup Shack. Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Mathew Houck was born in 1980 and grew up in Huntsville, Alabama. After starting a family and moving back to Nashville, Houck took several years off before re-emerging with 2018's C'est La Vie. The album sold better than anything that came before it in Houck's catalog and included standout cut "Song for Zula," which was used in multiple films and television shows across the globe.
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2013's career highlight Muchacho would be Phosphorescent's best-received work to date. Relocating from Athens, Georgia to Brooklyn, Houck assembled a cast of various bandmates, touring relentlessly through the 2000's and finding more success with each new album. Houck wrote songs and toured solo while in his early twenties, taking on the Phosphorescent moniker in 2001 and releasing several albums before signing to heavyweight indie label Dead Oceans with the release of 2007's Pride. As Phosphorescent, singer/songwriter Mathew Houck embarked on a slow-burning journey that saw his music rise from dusty homespun albums to critically lauded and internationally recognized songs as he pushed on through the years.