Kevin Bronson on June 1st, 2009

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It seems like Paul Larson has been a familiar figure on the Silver Lake scene before there was even a Silver Lake scene. Larson, the lead singer and principal confessor in the Minor Canon, made an album with Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, the Postal Service) and Chris Gunst (Beachwood Sparks) during the Clinton Administration, and has collaborated with Tamborello and others since. Now the same Silver Lake house where the Postal Service’s “Give Up” emerged has given birth to the Minor Canon’s sophomore album, “Emptiness Is Form” (to be released digitally on Tuesday). Like the sextet’s 2007 debut, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished,” this new batch of woozy, orchestrated pop finds the songwriter buffeted by disillusionment and regret. In guitars, piano, percussion and horns and narrated by Larson’s aching vocals, it’s the sound of a man taking his lumps and finding the lucidity to share the scars. In brief, Larson says, it’s “love, loss, disappointment – and hangovers.” I caught up with him last week:

• ||| Download: “If Wishes Were Horses”

BB: I’ve always been curious – is there anything in your place that commemorates the fact that the Postal Service album was recorded there? It turned out to be a pretty important little disc in local annals.

Paul Larson: “Not really – Jimmy has a gold record, of course. But my office, which is the control room of the studio now, used to be the guest bedroom, and that’s where Ben [Gibbard] slept while he worked on the record.”

The album that came out of your studio [and Pasadena’s Hot Pie, where part of it was done] this time – if it were a cocktail, what would it be?

“My first inclination is to say an Old Fashioned … but actually I think it’s a boilermaker – a shot of Wild Turkey dropped in a beer.”

It does seem awfully potent.

“There’s a lot of girth. The album consists of snapshots of a lot of very personal things that went on in my life the past two years. It’s heavy.”

Care to elaborate on those things?

“How do I sum this up? I went from being engaged and semi-domestic to losing all that in a downward spiral of booze and drugs. I went into rehab and lost my band. I really had to pick myself up. … I guess you could call it a difficult time. I started writing when the last record was finished. I went through some member changes and some studio sessions and some personal issues. I took some time off at one point and then finally got it finished.”

Is the Minor Canon a case of you doing all the songwriting and arranging and bringing the songs to the band?

“This album was much more of a collaboration, in particular from the point of view of [pianist] Ryan Blake. The guys in the group [including bassist John Marston, drummer Kyle Crane, trombonist Mike Richardson and trumpeter Blake Hanna] were a bit more a part of the creative process.”

And I think you guys remain the most nattily attired band in Silver Lake.

“There’s such a hodgepodge of personalities in this band that if we dressed in our street clothes we’d all look like hobos.”

So you’ll be getting a new suit for the album-release show?

“I’m always buying new suits. I have a closet full of them.”

||| Live: The Minor Canon performs Tuesday at Spaceland with Sing Orpheus, comedian Matt Dwyer and Dntel (DJ set).