Beauty Pill

Beauty Pill is the project of Chad Clark, who earlier played in the DC band Smart Went Crazy. Its early EPs and the album The Unsustainable Lifestyle came out on Dischord Records, though the music sat well apart from that label's punk reputation: tidy, rhythmic indie rock with horns, samples, strings and close attention to how each instrument sits in the mix.

For its next album the band turned the recording itself into an installation, making the record in a gallery space at Arlington's Artisphere with the public able to watch through the glass. The resulting album, Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are, arrived in 2015, more than a decade after its predecessor.