Seeking the unheard of

In total, the three members of Blonde Redhead speak six languages. But the only one they share, and the one in which they communicate with each other and write the lyrics to their songs -- English -- is the first language for none of them.

Twin brothers Amadeo and Simone Pace, raised in Milan and later Montreal, speak Italian, French, Spanish and some German in addition to English. Kazu Makino was born and raised in Kyoto speaking Japanese.

Even the brothers now speak to each other largely in English, though while setting up their equipment before the trio’s recent show at the Henry Fonda Theater, they almost unconsciously slipped into Italian.

“Simone and I have learned to speak English to each other,” says Amadeo, sitting with Makino in the dressing room. “It seemed the most natural way. But when we feel Kazu is drifting away from a conversation, we switch to Italian.”

Something that interfered with any communication led to an artistic breakthrough with the New York-based trio’s new album, “Misery Is a Butterfly.” Makino, an avid horsewoman, was thrown from a steed, and among her injuries she suffered a severely broken jaw that had to be wired shut.

“It came in sort of a difficult period,” says Makino. “Work on the album kept getting interrupted. We were kicked out of our practice space. Then I got hurt and couldn’t sing. But it was a blessing in disguise. We wouldn’t have made such a dramatic change in the sound.”

That change is to a warmer approach than on the band’s previous five albums, in which they strove to mix cerebral art with lush pop sensibilities.

“We love music, we love really challenging things,” says Amadeo, 40. “But we also feel we want to have something cozy.”

Comfort was clearly what Makino needed in the music.

“For me, I wanted a record that sounded never painful to listen to,” says Makino. “Never painful.”

The result in this album, which comes four years after the band’s previous release, is a move toward the evolution of a musical language all the band’s own -- a goal it has held since Makino first met the Pace brothers in a New York coffeehouse in 1993. The twins had been pursuing music seriously since moving there four years earlier, while Makino was still seeking direction since leaving Japan at about the same time.

“I was obsessed with not having any style of music,” says Makino. “When you play other people’s music you have to follow their style.”

Together they formed Blonde Redhead almost on the spot -- Makino, who plays keyboards and guitar, and guitarist Amadeo both singing, with Simone on drums, and Makino’s friend Maki Takahashi on bass.

Combining a no-wave art sensibility with a love of lush Europ-pop melodies, they caught the attention of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who produced their first album and released it on his Smells Like Records label. Takahashi left the band, and the others continued as a trio, releasing one more for Smells Like, then signing to Chicago independent Touch and Go for three albums.

With the new album, Blonde Redhead has moved to 4AD Records and has made great strides toward reaching that initial goal of sounding like nothing else. As the title implies, the sounds and emotions are delicate and dark, elegant and grounded, cerebral and affecting. It’s art music and heart music, with equal appeal to a Serge Gainsbourg fan as to a Sonic Youth fan, without ever sounding like either act.

Adventurous, accessible

Makino’s airy, soaring voice alternates with Amadeo’s stretched falsetto, both gaining a sense of Impressionistic poetry from their respective English-as-a-second-language writing and delivery. It’s at once the band’s most adventurous collection and its most accessible.

Arguably, it’s what they have been reaching for since long before they teamed up. As youths in Milan, the Pace brothers became enamored with pop music by mimicking and singing along to the only two singles they owned: the Turtles’ “Happy Together” and the Rolling Stones’ “Angie.” Later, as teens in Montreal, they were in a band playing Led Zeppelin covers and such.

Makino took piano lessons as a child, and then in junior high school fronted an all-girl band that made up its own fantasy world of sounds.

“You were playing blues, right?” asks Amadeo.

“It was blues, but as done by girls in junior high in Japan who didn’t really know what blues was,” she says.

The three still believe that they don’t really fit in to any culture or scene. But they also believe that as artists they have a place anywhere.

“I think it’s more we feel quite rootless,” Makino says. “Maybe that makes us absorb more when we’re in different lands, develop skills to feel at home in many countries.”