Parenthetical Girls is a project by music journalist Zac Pennington. It's experimental as hell, melodic to the bone and simply beautiful. Think of Phil Spector doing art-rock: the melodies have flashbacks to the fifties and the sixties and on top of it all you get lots of noises and samples.

So far, there are two albums by Parenthetical Girls, in which a lot of known friends came to play (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, The Dead Science, some of Xiu Xiu Touring band, etc'). Both of the albums are great, but if you want to here Parenthetical Girls at their best, check out 2006's "Safe as Houses".

"Safe as Houses" is a concept album made by a man who is attempting to explore the dark inner world of women. As it figures, the man point of view of women is hysteric, uptight & disturbing on the outside, and pretty and aesthetic on the inside. You need to follow the lyrics to figure it out. Just as an example, the album starts off with the line "There's blood between my legs / and in the grass outside your house I came". Rrrr.

Safe as Houses

What have you been working on since "Safe as Houses"?

"We toured the U.S. several times, released our third semi-annual Christmas EP and a single, toured Europe for the first time, and basically avoided any attempt to make a new record by all means. We are finally presently working on what will hopefully be our new record, to be finish by year's end if all goes as planned".

Your music is extremely unique. What is your inspiration?

"Parenthetical Girls are primarily inspired by a desperate triumvirate of self-doubt, lust, and longing nostalgia. Also, I listened to a lot of Spacemen 3, Brian Eno, Beat Happening, and Morrissey as a teenager".

Who do you think is the most over-rated artist or band of all times?

"'Over-rated' is a term I tend to avoid in favor of the decidedly more self-depricating expression of just not 'getting' music, assuming that most well-respected things I don't like are somehow just over my head. That said, there is a lot of music that I don't 'get'. There are probably a lot more contemporary (and therefore controversial) artists that I can't fucking wrap my head around, but for the sake 'all times', I'm gonna have to go with Bob Dylan. And it's not even that I dislike Bob Dylan all that much - I own a couple of his records, and am occasionally moved to listen to them - I just don't buy into that whole 'rock music's greatest poet' yarn. For every powerful lyric he wrote, dude dropped about a dozen questionable, nonsensical clunkers he somehow sold as visionary. I've just always had the feeling that Dylan was popular music's most impressive con man - which I genuinely respect".

What's your use in social networks?

"I visit social networking sites on a fairly regular basis, both for personal use and for the small label that I run, Slender Means Society".

Do you think that networks like myspace/imeem/last.fm helped you to achieve recognition?

"It's difficult for me to gauge the impact of social networking sites directly, as the band has to now avoided registering an official myspace page (though there are a handful of pages run under our name). I've found that both last.fm and myspace have been fairly helpful in terms of direct communication with people interested in our music - as well as directly promoting our shows".

Does it bother you that a lot of fans will listen to your music online instead of buying the album?

"I wouldn't say that it bothers me, but I think that it does have more of a direct impact on Parenthetical Girls than it might on other independent artists, as we - via our label Slender Means Society - foot the bill for all of the production and promotional costs for our records. That said, my abject poverty makes it difficult to do a lot of music buying, and as such I do quite a lot of downloading myself".

What are your recent online findings?

"My hard drive recently crashed, and I lost the vast majority of my music files... I've just been trying to rebuild as of late. Recent acquisitions that I've been enjoying lately include: Dan Deacon's "Spiderman of the Rings," Hot Butter's "Popcorn" LP, Dory Previn's "Reflections In a Mud Puddle," Alan Vega's "Sunset Strip" and Cristina's "Doll In a Box". Nothing particularly new I'm afraid, excusing that brilliant Dan Deacon".

What would you do if you had eight hands?

"As little as possible".