Marrow

"Feel good about feeling bad," the motto on Marrow's MySpace page proclaims. Or, as composer/vocalist/synther Erin Fortes puts it, "We want to prove that misery can also make you move your ass." The syncopative San Francisco electro-pop trio also comprises composer/producer/vocalist/synther Jeremy Fortes and producer/synther/background vocalist David Earl: So yep, that's a whole lot of vocals, not to mention a whole lot of synthesizers. Trained, they claim, in both classical and jazz, the threesome initially joined forces as part of the Bay Area's performance art scene, concocting a self-described "shock-rock opera" called Scabaret! in the late '00s. Their first album as Marrow, Quiet Desperation, came out in 2009; a second, Sunshine Enema, a year later. A creatively packaged "Master Cleanse" version of that sophomore record was sold in a prescription bag, complete with a USB drive made to look like a pill. But in the long run, the fact that it ended with a cover of a '70s folk song by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, done more or less straight, was perhaps just as notable an innovation.