Led by crooning frontman Samuel T. Herring, the members of Future Islands started out making electro-pop music together in 2003 while attending East Carolina University’s art program. Along with Herring, Adam Beeby, William Cashion, J. Gerrit Welmers, and Kymia Nawabi were the initial members of the group, and they played shows around campus as Art Lord & the Self-Portraits.
In 2006 after the band split, Herring, Cashion, and Welmers continued under the name Future Islands and picked up the Kickass bassist Erick Murillo to round out the low-end. The band released a few CD-Rs, splits, and cassettes before Murillo moved on in a more indie rock direction, and relocated to Baltimore with the encouragement of Dan Deacon. His producer, Chester Endersby Gwazda, recorded Future Islands’ first full-length, Wave Like Home, in 2008, and their next two discs -- the In the Fall EP and In Evening Air -- which were both released by Thrill Jockey in 2010.
-Jason Lymangrover, Allmusic.com