Rubblebucket’s new album explores one particular year from the band’s past known as the Year Of The Banana. Frontwoman Kalmia Traver has a personal practice of naming each year since 2011, ie: Year of Brushstrokes (2014), Year Of The Mountain And The Steady Flame (2022), Year Of Stop Crying, Start Flying (2023), etc. However, in 2015 (Year Of The Banana) Kalmia’s romantic relationship with Rubblebucket co-founder Alex Toth fell apart, and that year was spent peeling off psychological layers in search of the sweetness that would allow the friendship, and the band, to continue. “People get obsessed with the albums that were never finished because the band couldn’t stay together,” Kalmia says. “But Year Of The Banana is the album that did get finished.” So Rubblebucket is celebrating 15 years as a band with a record about the year it almost ended.
