The excellent series of Daytrotter sessions continues with this selection of five songs from Zac Pennington’s Parenthetical Girls. All the material is drawn from the band’s first and third albums, and the fourth song segues from “Avenue of Trees” into “Unmentionables.”

Pennington offers some entertaining notes to accompany the session, indicating that he clearly favors the songs from last year’s Entanglements by saying: “most of our old songs are profoundly boring to play live.” Pennington even uses Daytrotter to make some notes on his songwriting style. “One final note to self,” he says. “When writing songs in the future, remember that it is likely not a good idea to denote your age in said songs, as it will inevitably make you feel old to sing them some six years later.”

Parenthetical Girls sound like the least “old” band alive on this set, which is full of youthful joie de vivre that variously recalls Sparks, the Magnetic Fields and My Fair Lady. Pennington even admits his fondness for musicals in the notes to “Four Words,” saying: “for all of the times I've heard people say that our last record sounded like a musical, this was really the only song in which we actually meant it to sound that way.” The full session is available to stream and download at the Daytrotter website.