You guys have a long history of embracing technology, sometimes high-tech, sometimes antiquated.

Well, you know, two things can be happening at the same time in the world, and that doesn't mean that they are in opposition to each other. We are very interested in technology. We're very interested in experimenting with music, and one of the most exciting places to experiment with music is electronic music. But I think there's kind of, even in the world of musical exploration, there can be a lot of orthodox thinking. It's like your experiment has to be purely experimental--if you're interested in pursuing electronic music, it should be purely electronic. An I guess we're just...I'm loath to use the expression, but I think in some sense we are extremely post-modern in that case. We very freely mix up elements and don't worry about it too much. [Co-frontman, John Linell] was born in '59 and I was born in '60, and we grew up with the Beatles, which was rock music in its very sort of potent stage. When we were teenagers, there were a lot of bands that would incorporate synthesizers in the band, and it seemed like a natural addition. But a lot of music with electronic elements seems to be sort of conspicuous, like with a scientist in a rocket lab.

Yeah, you have George Harrison doing that album [Electronic Sound] that was all on the Moog.

Oh yeah, there was a lot of activity and a lot of interest in it, but I guess the thing is how to use it as a creative tool, and not just be this sort of novelty.

Like, say, Peter Frampton.

Yeah, I guess we're interested in things that are emerging, but when we're making recordings, we're very aware that it's something that has to hold up to repeated listens, and probably something that will be around for a long time. So we're just trying to figure out the way to use those instruments and still have it be valid.

The focus when somebody listens to the song being not the technology, but rather the song itself.

Yeah. I think, as far as the strategy goes, it's really important when you're making a recording to remember that it's something that's going to be listened to again and again. I think that getting the balance right in a recording is really key. That's always the question, whether it's how you integrate a startling new sound or how you integrate the humor in your personality, or how loud you make the snare drum. Those are really topics that are at the forefront of how to make a good recording. It's always a balancing act.

But there's the song that you recorded on the Edison Cylinder ["I Can Hear You"]. The recording device plays a large role in the them of the song, itself.

Yeah. That was a song that was site specific and it was written specifically for the thing we were doing. I think we're home recording enthusiasts. We started out making tapes together on amateur recording machines, and we're really fascinated with tape recording, or sound recording. It's a part of making music, but it's also its own thing, its own challenge. And things that work in recordings don't necessarily work in live performance and vice versa."

When you first started out, were you worried about making something too slick, and losing something in the music to the production?

The means to do anything in a slick way were so unavailable to us that it never really was an issue. We had very crude tools, for a very long time. We started out as a duo and used a drum machine. And something that I think we only became aware of, after we graduated to bigger studios and started working with live musicians, was how the sort of automatic, mad flava of the drum machines made our recordings exceptional-sounding.

Working with a drum machine, things come out sounding different, and less-familiar. Even when you're just programming a simple drum pattern that's familiar to everyone, there was this interval of time when it was the strangest way to do the simplest thing. And when we were working with drum machines, we thought is just sounded very immediate and normal. But listening to those recordings now, I realize that it's sort of a more awkward sound than we fully understood.

You know, you only have so much self-awareness. When we started as a duo, we really didn't feel like there was anything wrong in trying to be a rock band. It wasn't like we were trying to dismantle the idea of being a rock band. We were just trying to be a rock band in New York City that couldn't afford a rehearsal hall, and didn't have a fast-track enough career to convince a drummer to work with us. There was a practical side of it. It was like, we wanted to be in a band, and this was the way we could do it. So the drum machine was just extremely handy. I mean, it was interesting, and it was cool to us, but it was also extremely handy. I don't think we had any idea at the time how challenging the setup of what we were doing was to the audience. There were definitely people in the back row of many of our shows who were shaking their heads, going, "what these guys are doing is not musically complete. That's why its not satisfying. No matter how good their ideas might be, it's not enough of a performance to be interesting for me."

And you understand that complaint now?

I sort of do. I think in the fullness of time, but when we were in the middle of it, I think we thought we were AC/DC. We thought we were just rockin'. "Turn it up." And our show was incredibly loud. I think it's something techno DJs realize: if you're there in the room, you do have volume on your side. On paper, it does seem completely incomplete. But there was an aspect to it that you couldn't avoid.

When you did that song, "Man, it's So Loud in Here," [something of a spoof on house music] was that sort of your response to those early days?

I think that's more about the world of discotheques, and that there's all sorts of rooms with over-amplified music. It wasn't really self-referential.

Are you a fan of electronic music at all?

I am fascinated by all recorded music. I'm probably a bigger fan of hip-hop music than I am of electronica. A lot electronic music you hear in an incidental fashion is kind of, I mean, maybe it's just the context, but it's like the least interesting way to hear it. I've lived in the same place for 25 years, but it's gone from being an abandoned neighborhood to being an extremely trendy neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Which neighborhood?

I live in Willamsburg, so basically the sort of ambient soundtrack to every coffee shop and lunch counter you enter is some version of electronica. And a lot of times I wonder if it takes more time to listen to than it did to make. There's a lot of presets getting triggered in my neighborhood.

It's such a casual listening experience, though. If you're in a coffee shop you're not actively listening to music, for the most part.

I'm not sure I believe in the passive music-listening experience. I like the silent restaurant. I like the silent bar. I put on music in the background in my day-to-day life, but that's a choice. You know, when you're choosing what you're listening to, you're touching on things you're familiar with, and sort of checking in with them. But background music just for a lifestyle's sake just sort of bums me out.

What about the radio though? Where you've made the decision to put on the radio, but you're not deciding what comes on next.

Getting back to the idea of being obsessed with recorded music, I find driving to be incredibly exciting, just as a listen. I can kind of drive forever, just because I find listening to music in that setting to be so exciting. But in a weird way, your car is just a really great listening room. That's not background music, because that's part of what's going on. It's one of my all-time favorite things.