Tarkio was an American indie rock band from Missoula, Montana, formed in 1996 and best known for featuring singer-songwriter Colin Meloy before he founded The Decemberists. The band also included Gibson Hartwell, Louis Stein, and Brian Collins, with Kevin Suggs contributing pedal steel on their debut album. They built a local following by performing around Montana and released a self-titled EP in 1997, limited to 500 copies. Their album, I Guess I Was Hoping For Something More, was released in 1998 through Barcelona Records. In 1999, the band released the limited EP Sea Songs for Landlocked Sailors, which included “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist,” a song later re-recorded by The Decemberists. They broke up in 1999 as Meloy's career with The Decemberists began to develop. Their scarce recordings later attracted renewed interest, leading Kill Rock Stars to release Omnibus in 2006, a two-disc retrospective collecting the band's available recordings.
