Computer Perfection Chart UFO's: Unique Family Orchestrations

At first, they only wrote about UFO's, Nathaniel Burgundy IV the keyboardist, vocalist and de-facto uncle in the Ferndale quintet Computer Perfection said, scratching his fuzzed chin as he looks back two years to when he and band-mates – and house-mates -- Gene Corduroy and Amy Bem were working through their first full length album, We Wish You Well On Your Way to Hell.

“There’s an element of truth to that,” said Corduroy, guitars and vocals, affirming his band mates UFO remark. “That carries through on our next album also.”

The trio have been close collaborators for almost ten years, but spent much of the 2000s as part of an ensemble in the group Pas/Cal, predominantly lead by the chamber-pop-inclined writing whims of lead singer Casimer Pascal. After an LP in 2008, Pas/Cal’s core disbanded, with Bem, Corduroy and Burgundy settling in green Dutch Colonial in Ferndale. 

“That first record was a lot of us finding out who we, as a band, were,” Burgundy said.

“…as songwriters,” Corduroy succinctly adds.

The trio would become Computer Perfection.

The group started with former Pas/Cal drummer Little Tommy Daniels, who wound up moving away in 2009, necessitating the addition of Ypsilanti-based drummer Aaron Quillen. Steven McCauley, formerly of the defunct local Americana band Scarlet Oaks, joined on bass and keyboards.

Quillen moved on in early ‘10 to be replaced by drummer (and WDET 101.9 FM sound engineer) Alex Trajano.

The sound they fostered so far has elucidated the wide-eyed whirling/ultra-violet vibrancy of a star-spackled night’s cruise in a sleek UFO, an alluring blend of synth-pop and Euro-tinged prog-rock. Subtly spacey noise tracts spill out underneath angular hooks, punchy drums and soaring melodies. It’s sci-fi chic, gracefully droned and danced forth to form a strange, shimmering pop style.

Burgundy and Corduroy need said they need a solid foundation to slather their guitar-and-synthesizer “wreckage upon."

And McCauley and Trajano are it, they said.

Corduroy said this rhythm duo is attentive to song’s tiny details as equally as overall themes. “Well balanced, textured, thoughtful…I feel like I’m describing a wine here," he said.

Burgundy doesn’t bat an eye when affirming that Computer Perfection is a “family” of sorts, considering the elements: the espoused Bem and Corduroy (with their 5-year-old daughter, Penny), along with his co-tenancy in their home and McCauley being a very close friend.

“I think we’re probably all such weirdoes, in general, and weirdoes in the music scene,” said Burgundy, shrugging, “that we’re sometimes too afraid to be the rock stars that we wish we could be. So it’s cool that we all ended up together.”

And it helps more than a little that the home the three (Bem, Corduroy and Burgundy) share is both a studio and a practice space. This comes in handy when you have a 5-uear-old running around.

“Practice is difficult. We’re making dinner during it, usually," Corduroy said. "Recording happens in fits and starts. There’s no such thing as a quiet house. I like to think about the days when I’ll be old or gone – that Penny will have our music. Maybe it will be a puzzle for her to try to figure out what was going on in our lives, or in our minds, when we were relatively young. Or maybe it’s just for me, when I get old, to remind myself that I had strange things in my head.”

This band/family has started recording their second proper opus with girded confidence and chemistry. Along with a bolstered instrumental arsenal: Moog prodigy, Roland vintage Synth M-Vs1 and a Korg Stage Echo.

Burgundy recalls the debates that went on in '08 while searching for the right balance of sonic ingredients (synthesized/acoustic/organ/guitar) for what would become their characteristic sound. It didn’t feel like compromise, he said, because having collaborators who you “respect and love” often makes it easier to be accept differing opinions.

Corduroy said, that in forming their new sound, “We didn’t want people to be able to draw a line from what we were doing in the past.”

Having graduated that first learning process, Burgundy said, there’s more ambition on (the new) record. The difference between these songs and Wish You Well is night and day.

“Lyrically,” Corduroy said, “for me, there is some introspection, but filtered through an oblique prism of things I’ve stumbled into lately.”

I Need a Serious Love is written from the perspective of a supercomputer longing to be human, inspired by a Twilight Zone episode, while Wayfarers All pays homage to the Wind in the Willows chapter – “drifters vs. firmly rooted, grafters vs. do-gooders, adventurers and spelunkers vs. homebodies.”

Computer Perfection performs June 11 at the Isaac Agee Downtown Synagogue with High Speed Dubbing, and Car Parts.

Hear some songs and watch their short films -- one of which prominently including -- at Computer Perfection's band site.