"Sunshine! Flowers!": Kitty Rhombus' episodic seizures

Guitarist Lee Chato sounds almost as if he's knocking his band Kitty Rhombus when he explains that "a lot of our songwriting is mushing together half-ideas to make something coherent." Bassist Jason Stanek sounds maniacally delighted when he explains that the band's songs "Gas Station" and "Phantom Skin" are about teleporting. Combine these two statements, though, and you've got a good idea of why the band works: A healthy embrace of chaos and incredibly geeky concepts only seems to ignite the fractured, eclectic noise-prog chemistry among Chato, Stanek, drummer Matt Styrwoll, and guitarist-vocalist Ian Stenlund. The new album Lips And Arms (which the band will celebrate with a free show Friday at the Project Lodge) feels like the work of a bunch of hacker kids assembling a multi-faceted computer attack—only instead of malevolent strands of code, the members contribute sneaky 5/4 beats, elf-chorus vocals, or guitar lines that frantically itch their way through mangled melodies. Each song ends up lurching from one episode of controlled dissonance to another, and, even more strangely, the songs and album as a whole all flow together. Chato, Styrwoll, and Stanek sat down with The A.V. Club to explain the puzzling logic behind a few specific tracks. (Stenlund, who now lives in Minneapolis, also answered a couple of questions via e-mail.)

"Gas Station" and "Phantom Skin"

The A.V. Club: It seems like you got more ambitious with the vocals on this album. "Gas Station" starts with this weird, almost choral part.

Ian Stenlund: Vocals have always been an area of continuing development for us. For a long time we didn’t have a P.A., so it was hard to practice singing. I remember at our first show ever, at the Nottingham Co-op in 2007, I didn’t have vocals completely worked out, and I had never heard how they sounded with the music, so I just let myself go. I think of my style of vocals is like speaking in tongues. But we all understand the appeal of something more polished and harmonic, so Jason started writing out [vocal harmonies].

Matt Styrwoll: Lee and I came up with [the beginning of "Phantom Skin"], which is funny because we're on a different wavelength than Jason and Ian. We like punkier, grungier stuff. Most of the prog-y stuff comes from Jason and Ian. It's just a funny ordering of our influences.

Jason Stanek: I was just thinking about lyrics on that one. They're funny. This one goes along with "Gas Station." "Gas Station" is about teleporting.

MS: Dustin [Sisson, who produced the album for a class project at Madison Media Institute] had the intention of making it a concept album from the get-go. He had listened to our older stuff and had all these theories he had come up with.

JS: I guess we'd been aware that we like sci-fi topics here and there, but he was like, "Oh, this whole album's about robots." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, it is!"

"Divine Dramedy"

JS: [We initially wrote this during] a time in our songwriting where we'd play this idea for a while then we'd be like, "Okay, we're bored with that, let's play something else! How about this now, and then that!"

MS: A lot of that stuff comes out when we stop playing but one of us keeps playing inadvertently. One part was Ian just fucking around, and I was like, "Wait, keep doing that!" It turned into a third of the song.

Lee Chato: We'll kind of map out these separate parts that are all different meters and change abruptly, but as we get used to playing them together they kind of evolve a little bit organically.

"Daughters"

AVC: Speaking of abrupt, there's a moment in the middle of this song when Ian screams, "What's this? For me? Ah, sunshine! Flowers!" What's going on there?

IS: That was Dustin’s idea. He was good about giving us new ideas to spice up the songs a bit—bells and whistles, you know. I was like, “I don’t know what to do during this part,” and he was like, “Man, I just hear it get all happy—like, can you say something about flowers?” I guess I took his suggestion very literally.

JS: The whole time, these random things he's talking about are supposed to be bad, or stuff you're getting down about, and in the middle the music changes, and then it's kinda happy. "Oh, sunshine!"

"Mouse Little Mouse"

JS: It's about a mouse, right? And he's playing around in teacups, and dishes and stuff, right? [The title Lips And Arms] comes from the song. Straight-up, it says [sings] "lips and arms!" and I do a little harmony there.

AVC: Was there any other reason for the album title?

JS: We had two pieces of paper with album titles all over them. Donkey Promise—[everyone laughs]

LC: I was against that one.

JS: The artwork is lips- and arms-themed! Which is great!

LC: Julia [Sonmi Heglund, from local band Sonmi] did the art.

JS: I kept wanting it to be Donkey Prom, because I'm like, "Man, if we give Julia Donkey Prom, she's gonna draw some donkeys in tuxedos dancing!"

MS: I'm just really happy with what she did. It's kind of Lisa Frank-y.