It’s been a little time since Parenthetical Girls’ last full-length album, Entanglements, but they’re doing their best to make up for it. On February 23, the group — having sloughed off the orchestra and returned to the basics (Zac Pennington, Rachael Jensen, and Jherek Bischoff) — will release the first 12-inch of a five-part EP series, entitled Privilege, on Slender Meets Society (vinyl and digital release). A project of this magnitude takes time, and the last 12-inch to complete the set is not slated for release until May 2011. Lest you lose interest in the months in between releases, keep in mind that the final EP will be accompanied by a special LP box designed to store all five in style — packaging more suited to an oeuvre of this size than being couched in your record crate among those Goodwill buys and Logos.
To make the offer even more exciting, these EPs come with the guarantee that you just might be the only indie kid around to have a physical copy. Not available in stores, there will only be 500 copies pressed of each 12-inch, all hand-numbered in the blood of Parenthetical Girls themselves (why is blood in vogue now? “Xiu Xiu for Life” t-shirts, anyone?). In addition to the promise of (((GRRRLS))) DNA, each EP will come with artwork courtesy of illustrator Jenny Mörtsell.
“Evelyn McHale,” the opening track from On Death & Endearments, is online now, and if Entanglements was somehow too cheery for you, McHale’s back story gives a familiar nod to Safe as Houses-era morbidity. According to Stereogum, the song’s namesake was a 23-year-old woman who committed suicide by jumping from the Empire State Building, only to have her corpse photographed immediately after landing in a more or less flattering position. We knew Parenthetical Girls wouldn’t let us down.
• Parenthetical Girls: http://parentheticalgirls.com
• Slender Means Society: http://www.slendermeanssociety.com