Emperor Wu had it pretty pear shaped in some ways. Granted, this seventh potentate of the Han dynasty did oversea the expansion of China to the greatest geographic extent in its entire history, and was fairly paramount in the introduction of Confucianism into that culture’s moral and ethical code. But for a good long time he was subject to the control of his Mother and Grandmother, the dreaded Grand Empress Dowager and Empress Wang respectively. How much has it got to stink to ascend to the highest throne in the land and only to share a title with your mother and get outranked by your granny. It’d be like if Jenna Bush got elected President, and suddenly Laura got to be President too, while both had to yield to the unfukwitable pearls and pastel-suit badassitude of Grand President Dowager Barbara. Not fun.

Then one day, though he had conquered all the way from Vietnam to Korea and even inadvertently coined a phrase still used to mean “I am going to take a mistress”, one of his favorite concubines died. Bummer. He was torn up like an old Montrose condo. There’s part of us that thinks “Maybe that will remind you to stay with your wife, jerk,” and another that goes “well, he prolly had to marry according to a set of ancient codes and matters of nobility and all that, so how romantic of him to find, from such great heights (WE SAID POSTAL SERVICE), love in the time of empire.” In fact, at this moment, though our collective girlfriends will most likely not be pleased with our hall-pass grant to a cheat, we’re leaning towards the latter - if only because of what happened next. He inadvertently created shadow puppetry.

The Turtles of his Entourage were instructed to bring his beloved back from the dead, and so they created a series of figures, controlled by sticks, and illuminated from the rear onto a translucent screen. To this they added set pieces and narrative, and the form spread through Asia and into Europe with a greater sweep than even Wu’s cavalry. It would change and evolve over the years, being the great grand-daddy of silhouette and eventually cell animation, and would surely, in it’s modern form no doubt, led to many many first and only dates because of the phrase “How about we go see the new Bobbindoctrin shadow puppet show tonight?”.

The figures themselves are made of many materials, leather, metals, feathers, wood; but in the Chinese style of zhi ying xi everything, from the knights to the damsels to the castles to the sun to the moon, are made of paper.

On their debut (and possibly only) full length, New Tales, Papermoons, carry forth the effect of this type of storytelling rather than the format. Theirs’ are a fuzzy and indirect outline of the catharsis of pop emotion rather than the crisp rawness of a direct image where often far too little is left to the listener’s imagination. Their songcraft and performance is the blocking of light to create a form rather than a dull mirror’s reflection of what the artist wants you to see. And because of it, their troubadour compositions, in which the emoticon’s parenthesis is almost universally open, come off as genuine, honest and at times utterly heartbreaking. They are nowhere near the clogging instances of so many dubiously earnest emotional displays which smell of thinly disguised sympathy-evoking pussy bait.

Like the 7″ that preceded it, New Tales combines simple (though not simplistic) instrumentation, melodic arrangements and un-ironic observations of the comings and goings of life and love from a universal parapet. There is a worn, almost surrendering authenticity to it, like dirty blond hair on a hot day pony-tailed with a ratty old elastic, cooling the neck at the risk of sunburn. Though the layering of their instruments has an integrated, study feel, even the strongest element, if removed from the hermetic seal of the quiet production and mastering, would seem as fragile as the thinnest piece of model aircraft landing gear - harrowingly breakable even as one tries as delicately as possible to cut it free of its plastic jig.

Their skill in communicating rests so strongly in the subtlety of it all. How the slightest change in intonation changes the emotional content of the refrain “all we are is acquaintances/ all we are is past tense” from insecure statement-as-question to resigned truth, for example. Our personal favorite, from the record and the stage, is “Lazy Bones”, a song with a country root and without a pandering spirit.  We could do this for every track, but we often get caught up in a pause, lasting only half a shiver, on “Holy Cow”; when the drums, bass foot pedal, guitar and harmonica all come in at once, you’re left utterly shattered by something you thought had no more power than a pastel confectionery avian. The whole experience of the record is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Heartbreaking is a word that we’ve been using alot with the Papermoons lately. When we heard the words that one was moving back to Ohio and the other to Austin (both for very good reasons, we should note), it sucked the air right out of our lungs and, we felt at the time, the entire scene. It may be fair to say that there are many mediocre bands in this town, but Papermoons is most assuredly not one of them. Like a coulda’ been girlfriend on the cusp of engagement, we’re not ready to let them go, not by a longshot. Though in a shadow play the hero always wins, he often cannot do so without loss. It’s loss that we’re feeling when we think of them gone. Thank Wu we have this record as a succadaneum. If you buy one record for a long while, make it this one.

Papermoons’ CD release party is Friday Night (July 11th) at the Mink. This show, which also is the kickoff for their tour and is rumored to be the last they will ever play in Houston, has a solid bill that includes The Sour Notes, B., and Phillip Foshee. $5.