Parenthetical Girls

Originally named after an early Brian Eno and Robert Fripp song called "Swastika Girls," this Seattle band wisely settled on the more congenial moniker of Parenthetical Girls. Along with a shifting membership that includes Jherek Bischoff and Sam Mickens of the Dead Science, the Girls' core consists of Jeremy Cooper and Slender Means Society label head Zac Pennington. Fans of Xiu Xiu's electro-noise pop experimentalism and Devendra Banhart's frayed and fragile take on folk will find much to like about Parenthetical Girls. The band's delicate male-female vocal harmonies lend its music a certain grace, and the combination of ambient electronic sounds and acoustic instruments create a mood of nostalgia, evoking that point in your life when it seemed you had all the time in the world to indulge your whimsy. These tasteful collages of noisy, richly textured tunes and yesteryear pop sensibility would make Wall of Sound producer Phil Spector proud.