One look at the cover of the just-released self-titled album by the experimental Brooklyn dream-pop duo High Places and you begin to get an idea of what they're all about: a landscape under clouds, at once ominous and inviting (hippie-dippie, nature-loving), superimposed with the giant head of an infant (childlike), with blissed-out blue eyes and some sort of spin-art God's eye in the middle of his forehead (a tendency toward the psychedelic). But that's only scratching the surface.

"Someone early on said our music sounded like the Mars Volta singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' in the back of a station wagon," confessed Mary Pearson, vocalist, classically trained bassoonist (no lie) and one half of High Places. Her partner, multi-instrumentalist Rob Barber, finds the assessment "kinda weird" — not that he has a problem with weird. Weird are the inviting, enveloping waves of sound that Barber and Pearson create, and weirder still are their source materials. So-called "field recordings" of everyday objects — from clanging pots and metal desks to jangling coins, walking on leaves, even flipping through the pages of David Lee Roth's autobiography and then slamming it shut — have become as much a signature element of High Places' sound as anything. Add a dash of addictive beats; sped-up, slowed-down or backwards guitar parts; and Pearson's voice, often buried deep in the mix; and High Places begin to come into hazy focus.

"I read this book by Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead about sound collectors, guys that went to different parts of the world and recorded people and used these tin-can mics," Barber explained, "and it was just the immediacy of that, for me. Coming from a punk-rock background there is something about the immediacy of a band recording in a garage. But then we'll have 10 different guitar tracks and six percussion tracks. I guess you could say that, in a way, what we do is lo-fi, but actually the amount of layers is actually super elaborate."

It all comes together to create a sound others have called "underwater" or "far away," though what they use to create those elaborate layers would have to be called rudimentary — a 12-year-old computer program that by Barber's own admission "really doesn't do anything but cut and paste." But he's always used it, he's comfortable with it, and, despite such inconveniences as the program freezing up once it gets over 150 megabytes, they don't consider it constraining. "It allows you to be so finite in what you cut and paste, and it's more truthful in a way," Barber said.

"Truth" and "honesty" are words that came up a lot in talking with Rob and Mary at their Bed-Stuy apartment/ practice space. They've only been a band for two and a half years — long enough to have created quite a stir in New York and points beyond, which they hope to replicate across the nation with the release of the new album and current fall tour. While their synchronicity extends beyond music to conversation — they obviously know each other well — on paper they might seem an unlikely pair.

Pearson, the bassoonist, is a self-described musical "late bloomer" who only started going to shows when she was 19 and first joined a band when she was in college — a Siouxsie and the Banshees-esque outfit. "I begged my friends who were starting the band to include me on the bassoon," she recalled. "I told them, 'I know it sounds gimmicky, but let me try it.' " Eventually she took over vocals as well — something she said didn't come naturally. Pearson is not a power singer, which suits the delicate noise of High Places just fine, and in live shows she stays in her safety zone as the duo tend to use voice as just another mid-range melodic tool. Pearson began doing solo shows in Michigan and had planned to study music in grad school in the fall of '06. But those plans were sidetracked when, through a connection involving hipster faves Japanther and the Death Set, she met Barber and moved to Brooklyn for the summer to split the rent and do some solo gigs. The two solo acts soon became a duo.

For his part, Barber was a music junkie whose own journey began as an East Coast skater punk, discovering musical thrills in the form of CBGB's legendary hardcore matinee shows, via bands like Gorilla Biscuits. Signposts along his musical path — "I was always looking for something weird," he remembers — included Skinny Puppy, My Bloody Valentine, Slayer, the Smiths, Jefferson Airplane, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Lightning Bolt and the Fort Thunder noise scene, not to mention Beat Happening, the '80s indie-pop combo with a kid-like energy, to whom High Places have been compared. "I think it's always been more about energy to me than aggression," Barber said, "and in the early 2000s when I started getting into weirder music, the Brooklyn scene was more dark, noisy, male, smoky. It wasn't really me. I'm more outdoorsy. I was always more into more playful stuff, more hyper than aggressive."

Hyper is a fair description of the music of Spank Rock, Japanther, Dan Deacon and Matt & Kim — artists who, back in 2006, were mainstays on the bills of Brooklyn DIY über-promoter Todd P. (See MTV News' 2007 report on Todd and the burgeoning Brooklyn scene here.) While High Places' more understated approach was somewhat at odds with those bands' more raucous sound, after only their second performance ever they landed themselves a spot on a Todd P bill, beginning an association that would win them a devoted local following and lead to the release of a string of 7" records. Some of High Places' early poppy songs, like "Sandy Feat" and "Head Spins," became audience favorites, and eventually 10 tracks were released on a full-length compilation, 03/07-09/07, which makes Pearson feel like the new album is "a little more like the sophomore record, rather than a debut." High Places sticks to the band's credo — layers of quiet sounds meant to be amplified really loud and as musically honest as they can be. But the newer songs, like the trance-y "Vision's the First...," the quietly bubbling "Namer" and the beautiful closer, "From Stardust to Sentience," do, according to Pearson, represent growth. "I think we're continuing to get more comfortable working together, and I think it's more of a grown-up approach, a couple of years down the line."

However grown-up they get, High Places may always have trouble shaking a reputation for "childlike" music — thanks to their often sing-songy melodies, Pearson's sweet, tentative voice and a now somewhat-legendary gig the duo played in the spring of '07 at Michigan's Gilkey Elementary School, where Pearson's mom is a music teacher. "We wrote this song for the kids there," Pearson explained, "and they came up with choreography for it. We walked in the music room, and they had the lyrics written out on these huge pads. And so one grade at a time would come in and we'd play and they would stand and jump and do their choreography and scream at the top of their lungs."

Barber had been afraid High Places' music might be too weird or "druggy" for a grade school — not so. The kids loved it and the band got hundreds of thank-you notes, and, as a result of the appearance, some pre-teen bands have been formed. Barber recalled, "One kid wrote and said, 'I took all the pots and pans out of my kitchen, and I made a song.' So that's kind of awesome."

That's the best kind of awesome. High Places' self-titled debut album is out now on Thrill Jockey. Their current U.S. tour with another must-see band, Baltimore's Ponytail, is on the road through mid-October. See more of our conversation with them at rhapsody.com.