SAFE AS HOUSES
"His legs gave way like pages from a pop-up book…"
Formed in 2003 by then-principle constant Zac Pennington, Portland, Oregon's Parenthetical Girls have since evolved into a functioning ensemble, the core of which includes multi-instrumentalists Jherek Bischoff, Matthew Carlson, Edward Crichton, and Rachael Jensen). They are regularly augmented by a fluid cast of additional collaborators. The group has released two full-length records on Pennington's own Slender Means Society imprint. Their new and third album "entanglements" comes out in september 2008. (((GRRRLS))) have toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe, sharing stages with the likes of Deerhoof, Patrick Wolf, Xiu Xiu, The Microphones, and Casiotone For the Painfully Alone.
Parenthetical Girls have traded in their small-screen sincerity for a bold and blustering Technicolour - a lush, longing and lusty celluloid schmaltz they call Entanglements.
An orchestral song-cycle of grand sonic ambition, Entanglements is an eleven-song, linear narrative of ascendancy, adolescent sexuality, quantum mechanics, consent and other moral ambiguities - all set to an elaborately orchestrated olio of Modern Classical and timeworn, traditional American pop forms.
Borrowing string-swept sentimentality from the likes of Van Dyke Parks, Scott Walker, Jack Nitzsche, and Burt Bacharach, Entanglements draws colourful lines across the expanse between these orchestral pop antiquities and the more formidable strains of modern classical composers - its hues distantly reminiscent of names like Krzystof Penderecki, Philip Glass, and Gavin Bryars.
Drafted in fits and starts over the course of the last three years, the seeds for Entanglements were initially conceived by Parenthetical Girls founder, Zac Pennington as a conceptual/orchestral follow-up to (((GRRRLS))), the band's self-released debut.
When the task proved too daunting for Pennington alone, the project was abandoned in favour of a more sonically direct approach; a tact that would eventually produce the band's critically acclaimed sophomore record, 2006's Safe As Houses.
Following years of fluctuating ranks, Pennington at last drafted what was to become a permanent line-up, multi-instrumentalists Matt Carlson, Eddy Crichton, and Rachael Jensen, along with constant studio collaborator, Jherek Bischoff (The Dead Science, Ribbons). Aided immeasurably by Carlson's classically trained hand, the group set about eschewing Indie Rock's propensity for orchestral dabbling by forgoing the "Rock" almost completely. As a result, Entanglements is foremost a modern Orchestral Pop record - its motifs dissected and appropriated from a century's worth of sources, and reconfigured anew into something altogether different.
Recorded between Seattle, WA and Portland, OR over the course of two strenuous months, the Entanglements sessions gathered upwards of fifteen classically trained/experimental musicians to realize the songs' dense and dramatic arrangements, as laid to paper by both Carlson and long-time (((GRRRLS))) producer/engineer Bischoff (with additional assistance from Dead Science frontman Sam Mickens).
"...a creepily pretty presentation of female reproductive power as a kind of montrosity: its women are protuberant, seeping, layered apertures. This is the world in which girl-puberty and menstration are accursed, as opposed to how the onset of male sexuality is usually construed to be heroic." -Pitchforkmedia
"Brutally honest, upfront and totally captivating, Safe As Houses... sounds more like a performance piece than a rock and roll album. This is far more cultured than that. It feels more like a piece of art than a piece of fun. It should be performed in rooms filled with naked statues and giant frescos instead of dingy rock clubs. It should be enjoyed by all of you looking for something new, something fresh and something completely different to what else is out there at the moment." -Incendiary Magazine
"The whole album is terrifying, harrowing, flower-wrought. Get it." -Said the Gramophone
"This isn't easy listening, but it ought to be compulsory." -Las Vegas City Life
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