I first saw Wes Anderson's fantastically snide The Royal Tenenbaums at a Bay Area theater on the day of its 2001 release. The entire audience was falling over laughing ‹ during the film, on the way out, even while searching for their seats, psyched for a movie that they knew would have as much good ol¹ storytelling magic as wit. Then, while living in Edinburgh last year, I caught the opening of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Though there was a lot of laughter, every audience member seemed to be laughing at different times. After the screening, on the way to a pub other than the one attached to the theater, my few American friends and I were caught up in giddiness, claiming the film was "awesome because of its awesomeness."

Our British and Scottish friends didn't get it. "Didn't think it was that good," they said. "It was kind of shit. Who was that bloke?" "I think it was based on Jacques Cousteau," we ventured. "Didn't your parents have those books? Or do you mean the music? Those were David Bowie songs, in Portuguese."

"I know they were Bowie songs," a Londonite mused. "But what was the point?"

The UK dwellers saw Life Aquatic as a puzzle. I saw it as an ode to joy, an ode to my childhood obsession with shipwrecks and sea monsters, not as in the Loch Ness Monster or the computerized critters in the film itself, but as in the actual crazy creations of the sea. Luckily I'm back on American indie-rock every-land-is-fairyland soil now, and I have a new favorite soundtrack to my wandering life: The first record by quickly growing stars Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, who take their name from Gwyneth Paltrow's role as Margot Tenenbaum. Bandleader Richard Edwards's previous band also took its name from the Anderson canon: Archer Avenue, after the Tenenbaums' street of residence.

The tongue-far-beyond-the-cheek characterization of the Tenenbaums is almost too fitting for this fun-loving, tale-spinning, rock-resurrecting octet. On The Dust of Retreat, just remastered and rereleased by Artemis Records (originally out on Standard Recording Company a year ago), they play chamber pop that easily escapes the danger of a chaotic chamber and the nausea of repetitive pop. No, really, there are eight of them, plus the occasional cat or cat noises, as on the rollicking chorus of "Paper Kitten Nightmare," which consists entirely of meows. Who accidentally fed the cat the can of Pabst? Probably not these musicians, because their delicate interactions demonstrate a strong self-awareness. Unless they did it on purpose, for the sake of the story. The entire band lives in one house in Indianapolis. Stories are bound to arise. The Dust of Retreat begins with "A Sea Chanty of Sorts." Melancholic backup vocals and, as throughout the album, elegant vocal and instrumental leads make it instantly clear that this is not an album by anyone else. As in Anderson's films, many voices are present at once. The Decemberists, also sea chantey fans, always do their darnedest to make you feel like you're really out at sea. The members of Margot and the Nuclear So and So's do their very best to make you feel safe, more like you're hangin' at the 826 Valencia Pirate Store than begging in the galley. The magic of the So and So's is that they are always performing ‹ in interviews, onstage, on record ‹ and doing so cast as themselves. There is a magnetic sincerity to this eight-piece's active chamber pop. It's urban folk for urban folk, radiant lullabies for a new DIY urban culture that is both calculated and intentionally childish. The most thoroughly developed tracks ‹ "Talking in Code," "Jen Is Bringin' the Drugs" ‹ are so sweetly choreographed that the less-than-really-interesting "A Light on a Hill" passes by unnoticed. The So and So's are their own worst enemies. Nuclear, indeed.

Anderson is often quoted as saying that he made The Royal Tenenbaums in order to re-create a New York that never really existed or that only existed in his memory. Margot and the Nuclear So and So's seem uninterested in memory, focusing instead on the parts of modern life that seem too strange to exist even as they greet us day to day. Never quite happy but never quite sad, rarely regretful but not exactly shocked with hope, Richard Edwards's songwriting remains lush even at stark, emotional moments. The So and So's constantly give, then take away, whether it's unexpected and tasteful percussion, open-desert trumpets, or loungey cello.

Other songwriters who are often on my radar ‹ Beth Orton, John Danielle of the Mountain Goats, Birds of America's Nathaniel Russell, Mia Doi Todd ‹ bring raw inner landscapes to light using unique, jilted incantation. Margot and the Nuclear So and So's instead highlight the intense emotional potency in simple, everyday movements that slip away ‹ a snake in the grass, a missed sunrise.

"I am alive / I am alive / That is the best that I can do," Edwards sings on "Dress Me Like a Clown." Sometimes this being alive is wearying: On the Calexico-tinged and irresistibly honest "Talking in Code," Edwards confesses, "I've been tired from the minute I woke / I stopped listening the moment you spoke."

On paper, this sounds kinda lame, but the subtlety of the band's movements makes the troubled relationship Edwards sings about seem like just a passing fad. If all nuclear families were this awesome, we wouldn't have to laugh in order to cover up other feelings. We wouldn't have to laugh preemptively. We could just laugh. Or meow, howl, and shake. Let me reiterate: "Once you're dead, you can't come back. Meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow."

04.12.06