Kevin Bronson on June 25th, 2019

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Brother duo Cones make sanguine indie-pop, as if refracted through rays of California sunshine, as if that, in turn, was refracted through sobering realities like heartache and loss.

Jonathan and Michael Rosen started young, as one might imagine, but went their separate ways before collaborating as Cones (named for Jonathan’s favorite color, traffic cone orange) and releasing their first single in early 2017. Keyboardist Michael, who produces Cones’ music, is classically trained, has a degree in composition and music technology and writes for film and TV. Jonathan, the guitarist and principal songwriter, is an animator who has done work for the likes of Toro Y Moi, Delicate Steve and Eleanor Friedberger.

“It’s an amazing thing to work with your brother,” Jonathan says. When you know someone that well, when you can truly be yourself with them, when you can create together without inhibition, something indescribable happens.” Adds Michael: “Beyond the ‘cuteness’ of being brothers in a band, there was this unconditional love and understanding that allowed us to create better things together than either one of us could alone.”

Last week, Cones announced that their debut album “Pictures of Pictures” would be out Sept. 20 via Dangerbird Records. It’s not the album they initially set out to make — after embarking on work in a friend’s studio with an outside producer, the duo wiped clean the slate and made the album in their own Honeymoon Suite studio.

The first single “Moonstone” is a bittersweet ode to someone named Caroline, and it comes via a hand-drawn video that it took Jonathan Rosen two months to create.

||| Watch: The video for “Moonstone”

||| Previously: “Run the Risk,” “Later,” “Whatever You’re Into,” “Echoes On”