Though never a "frontman" before now, Seattle singer-songwriter T. V. Coahran has always been the kind of musician who lent interesting and original input to every band in which he appeared. Playing in both Popular Shapes and Holy Ghost Revival in the last four years, Coahran has built a reputation as one of the more inventive guitarists in the local bizarro art-punk community. The exhilarating hooks that once issued from his guitar and ran wild through the frantic landscape painted by the Popular Shapes' rhythm section haven't softened. Now, however, they've mutated into the greater substance of his solo music.

"Popular Shapes was really fun and collaborative; there wasn't really one person writing all the songs," says Coahran. "Holy Ghost Revival was mostly songs written by Conor Kiley, who's an amazing songwriter. I'd wanted to do something solo for a long time. Vocally, I just wanted to have dual harmonies all the time, like Everly Brothers, but more ambitious, more complex songwriting behind it. Sparks and ELO have definitely been another influence. Both [groups] have a really over-the-top, dramatic approach to making music."

The obvious influence of Sparks' grandiose, layered harmonies and quirky lyrics on Coahran's music notwithstanding, it has been occasionally overshadowed by the neat square of a mustache Coahran adopted in tribute to the Sparks keyboardist Ron Mael.

"I was at Bumbershoot watching Deerhoof and some guy stuck his finger in my face and started yelling 'Adolf Hitler' at me," Coahran recounts. "I pushed him away and he head-butted me. I get a lot of shit for the mustache."

In a live setting, however, Coahran's appearance is more apt to call to mind Charlie Chaplin. Coahran, with his half grin, fingerless gloves, and slightly askew cap, is very much the modern image of the troubadour tramp, and his music has all the chaotic hurly-burly of an early-'30s Max Fleischer short, at once cartoonish and mischievously dark humored.

This is most evident on "Artemis (Put Down That Bow)" and "Ogygia," two tracks from Coahran's new EP, Township of Cecil, which set the violent stories of Artemis and Acteon and Homer's Odyssey, respectively, to playful, ramshackle tunes overflowing with whistles, strings, and multiple layers of harmonized vocals.

Coahran recorded the songs with local musician Andrew Nelson, with whom he also co-wrote the music's keyboard and horn parts. Over the next six months, he recorded and mixed his own vocals and other elements into a final form, which was then mixed by Kurt Bloch.

"I like storytelling, almost fantasy-based lyrics," says Coahran. "It's all mythological kind of stuff."

That attachment to mythological themes serves the EP well, giving it a conceptual impression of telling one long story over the course of seven songs. One of the CD's high points is the three-part opus, "Islandfather," which tells a bizarre yet lighthearted story combining elements of both mythology and King Kong, with an interlude in its middle quoting a segment of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things."

All of these anachronistic flairs are enhanced by the disc's recording quality, which is at once vibrant and somewhat antique.

"That's a conscious choice," says Coahran. "I don't like when the vocals sound too clear; even putting effects on it on the computer afterward sounds a little artificial somehow. I just sing through this little Pignose amp; there's a knob called 'squeal,' and I just turn that up and turn down the tone and it sounds all scratchy and old."

The resultant lo-fi, almost otherworldy quality of the songs adds to Coahran's "one-man band" setup live, piping his backing tracks through the venue's sound system from his iPod.

Watching Coahran play live, it seems as though he is actually being accompanied by some bizarre-looking band just out of sight, which only adds to the wide-eyed sense of wonder in his music. Many of his songs would seem childlike were it not for the attention to detail that he brings to their multiple melodies and countermelodies. For his part, Coahran has even more ambitious plans for his future songwriting:

"I'm trying to work on a new album—I think it's going to be a concept, like one big long song with a bunch of parts. I think someone's going to sink underneath Cal Anderson Park into an underground beach or something... Some weird shit's going to happen."

editor@thestranger.com