Kevin Bronson on September 11th, 2012

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He is Michael Orendy, the occasionally reclusive songwriter who, in odd-numbered years since 2007, has released three albums of gorgeous, orchestrated pop as Frankel. She is Ariana Murray, who has been one of the driving forces in long-running L.A. indie-rock band Earlimart. They are married. So maybe their new collaboration, Paw City, was inevitable. Their self-titled EP, released quietly to Bandcamp last week, was “made in a room without a door,” they joke, but it feels the opposite – playful and expansive, combining electronics, orchestration and husband/wife vocals in surprising, sometimes experimental ways. Recalling, as you’d expect, the music of each party’s day job, as well as the crunchier moments of Grandaddy and the ambient textures of Mercury Rev, Paw City slips right out of the Orendy/Murray living room into yours. Have a seat.

||| Download: “Lonely Machine”