Founded in Georgia in the late '90s, Sound Tribe Sector 9 (later STS9) quickly refined a style of dub-influenced, breakbeat-infused psychedelic music with a heavy emphasis on group improvisation, comparable to the work of jam band peers such as the Disco Biscuits and the New Deal. The group's debut effort, 1998's Interplanetary Escape Vehicle, was recorded soon after the group's formation and thus provided only scant hints of the sound the band would develop, instead focusing on instrumental funk and jazz grooves.