I saw Acrylics open for the Morning Benders just over a year ago; if fellow tour partner and opener the Miniature Tigers were the Morning Benders’ rock and roll side, Acrylics’ performance and their lovely debut album, Lives and Treasure, are much more closely aligned to the electronic, hollowly delicate side of last year’s stellar Morning Benders album Big Echo. It’s a much more complex album than electronica would suggest in its basest form, with lush strings adorning low-voiced tracks like “The Window”, and thickly layered vocals on “Sparrow Song”.

For a duo — Molly Shea and Jason Klauber are the minds behind Acrylics — they have a deeply resonant and large sound; I don’t remember how they produced it live last year, but I am fascinated by the prospect of hearing these songs live. Shea is light voiced where Klauber is low and sad, and their harmonies, as well as the layered harmonies with herself that are all over the album, are a counterpoint of light and dark, the way the instrumentation of his tracks (guitars, strings) and hers (synthesizers, electronic keys) are starkly different and perfectly matched. The difference in sounds shouldn’t work on the album as a whole, but somehow the sequencing of the tracks and their wide-ranging sounds do.

Acrylics open for Junip — who I’m also stoked to see — at the Cat’s Cradle, Monday 5/16. Tickets are $15 in advance and at the door; doors at 8PM and show is 9PM.