Godreau took on the pseudonym Gregory and the Hawk in 2003 to avoid being pigeonholed as a singer-songwriter, despite citing her influences as Nick Drake, Liz Phair and PJ Harvey.

Both songs received a great amount of attention on the MySpace social networking website, increasing Gregory and the Hawk's popularity.

Soon after the release, the four friends moved apart, and so Godreau began playing live with just Ratner on upright bass, and herself on acoustic guitar and vocals.

[citation needed] In Your Dreams, Gregory and the Hawk's first full-length album, was self-released the following year with Mike McGuire and Susan Ambrose as the only other players.

Before Gregory and the Hawk was signed, Godreau had already sold 15,000 copies of her demos and full-length album, had 18 pages of cover versions on YouTube, and had several solo shows.

As stated by FatCat Records, "[we] discovered our newest signing, Gregory and the Hawk, entirely by accident, whilst out one night at a bar in Brooklyn.

[4] Godreau worked on Leche in winter 2009, writing and self-recording, then taking her music to a team of friends, engineers and collaborators including Pierce, as well as Jeremy Backofen (Felice Brothers) and Rob Laakso (Amazing Baby, Diamond Nights, Mice Parade, Swirlies).

Godreau wrote, "It turned out the idea behind the album was about traveling all around—both physically and psychologically—and observing many different places, people, and behaviors but always from a detached perspective, never directly involved.