A Somewhat Lengthy Endorsement Of The Band Parenthetical Girls

Cake Police, I would like to introduce you to one of my most favoritest bands in the entire world, Portland, Oregon's Parenthetical Girls (or, sometimes, (((GRRRLS)))...). This seems a particularly good time to do so, since they're doing some very interesting things at the moment. But, then again, everything that they do is interesting in one way or another. The band has scarcely been heard from since releasing their experiment in orchestral pop-maximalism, 2008's Entanglements. Recently, however, they introduced plans for a new album, with a release strategy that is to my knowledge unprecedented. They plan to release their new album, titled Privilege, in the form of five separate but aesthetically unified EP's, to be released over the span of 15 months. The first of which is to be released on in a couple of weeks (Feb. 23rd), and is subtitled (as all of them will be) "On Death & Endearments." There are to be four tracks on this particular EP, two of them were recently made available for the general public's listening pleasure. Here they are:

PARENTHETICAL GIRLS // On Death & Endearments by TheArtOf...

Evelyn McHale

The EP's will be released in the digital format, along with 500 12"'s per EP. The 12"'s will only be available through the Slender Means Society (label owned by bandleader Zach Pennington) website, and will all be numbered in the blood of a member of the band. In case this all seems a bit gimmicky (and, duh, it is), here is Pennington's justification for this odd release format:

"A few months ago, after a lengthy and unforeseen hiatus, the group Parenthetical Girls began to undertake what is for us an exceptionally ambitious project — that of creating our new record over the course of a series of five self-contained EPs — all under the decidedly inauspicious banner of 'Privilege'. There were myriad reasons for this enterprise, not the least of which being pragmatism: our sloth-like approach to writing and producing music, coupled with the cripplingly Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the mid-level independent music business, would mean that in all likelihood it would take at least another year for full-length to properly see the light of day—by which time the independent record industry is liable to have gone the way of the Quagga anyway.

"Having last spent the better part of two years preparing, recording, and then waiting for the release of a record that took the length of an average sitcom to listen to [Entanglements], we were anxious to work within a set of circumstances that could afford us both more creative spontaneity and communicative immediacy—short, appetising bursts of anima, free of the conceptual conceits that have historically bogged down our processes. But because everything that this band does eventually reveals itself to be yet another form of thinly-veiled self-defeatism, we (or rather, I) decided to do it in perhaps the most counter-intuitive way imaginable—as a sprawling, five-part, limited edition vinyl-only box set, for which we control all means of production, promotion and distribution. I should mention at this point that one of the album’s major themes is the beauty inherent in heroic, unequivocal failure. Wink. Wink.

"Beyond simple object fetishism — an impulse that is assuredly at hand here in spades — the idea was also one of opening ourselves to avenues that would otherwise seem too tangential to explore within the confines of album-length cohesion. And besides: everyone knows that EPs are the ideal format anyway—they’re like the svelte, sprightly and winsome idealist to the album’s turgid, fat, and pretentious academic. People can lament the death of the album for all that their lungs might muster, but my eyes are stone dry."

Pennington makes a good point here that I don't often hear. It seems logical that the EP format would lend itself more easily to creative license and a willingness to experiment (especially when you are on an at least somewhat large label that pours a lot of money into an LP and expects it to be in some sense of the word marketable). I suspect this very tendency to experiment that the EP format lends itself to is often why the average listener prefers LP's to EP's; among countless other more complicated reasons. I rarely hear this significant advantage of the EP cited, partly because I suppose it's easier and trendier to, as Pennignton puts it, "lament the death of the album."

Anyways, if you still need more reasons to check this band out, they have lots of famous friends! Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu produced their first album, and Jherek Bischoff of The Dead Science is a permanent band member, and also produces their albums these days. The band has also released 7" splits with both Joan of Arc and Xiu Xiu.

Parenthetical Girls write killer art-pop that has grown more complex with each of their three major releases thus far. Their 2006 record, Safe As Houses, would be right around the top of my records of the decade, had I made such a list.

So, yeah, check 'em.