“I’m starting to think I should just start busking every day instead of looking for jobs,” says Incomplete Neighbor guitarist Tyson Zamora. “Busking pays a lot better.” The band recently pared down to a three-piece after singer-guitarist Brandon Dow relocated to Bend, Oregon, in the midst of recording upcoming full-length Where the Penguins Live.

“I quit my fast-food day-job and moved into Brandon’s studio while we recorded our second album. It was surreal to be homeless, sleeping on the studio couch.”

Zamora says he’s turning depression into art. “Kurt Cobain’s suicide inspired me to pick up the guitar for myself,” he notes. “You could ridicule [our new] album as being a bit morose and introverted at times. I can’t really defend myself, except to say that music has always been a process of personal transformation — I can confront holographic demons and turn pain into bright, shiny butterfly sensations.”

Bassist-keyboardist George Thornton says, “Where the Penguins Live is a loose reference to the ‘laughing place,’ from Disney’s Song of the South, a place you want to be, but it also has its dark side, in that life will always get in the way. The album ended up mirroring our personal lives through that whole time period for us.... It was a cleansing process. We went in with dreams of the other side, got lost in the process, and discovered that where the penguins live is not like we pictured it, but we still want to go there.

“We tried to mimic the vinyl-listening experience, so there are two sides to the album. You know when side A is through; your ear’s palate is cleansed by the scratching silence. Then, side B finishes the point off with a new perspective.”

Incomplete Neighbor appears November 5 at the Ché Café with Irradio and A Scribe Amidst the Lions.