New York City's Soundpool started as a three person project featuring Mark Robinson (keyboard), Kim Field (keyboard Q-Chord, Omnichord and vocals) and John Ceparano (guitar, bass and keyboard). Between 2001 and 2006, when the band released their first CD, they have had a slew of bass players (including Rich Bennett, Dean McCormick and Andy Durutti) and James Renard on drums. Their most recent CD, Dichotomies and Dreamland, was released in March.

"The 'pool' in Soundpool references the pooling of different influences and sounds into one collective group. It also references the style of saturated guitar sound I gravitate toward, so we do pool from many different sounds and influences -- all things we love -- and put them together in a way that is hopefully innovative and new and perhaps you have never heard before," says Ceparano. "We're definitely trying to blur the lines between dance / electronica and indie rock. Inherently the shoegaze tag comes out of this, and of course the idea taking of the whole 'shoegaze' genre a step further or somewhere else is present."

Soundpool use Pro Tools at their home studio in the Poconos.

"Each song starts out different in its creation. Generally speaking, we're very song oriented, so it usually starts with old school writing -- just guitar, lyrics, sometimes synth or q-chord and a beat -- and then trying to find new ways of interpreting and experimenting with effects and whatever is at our disposal at the time," says Ceparano. "Guitar tracks are generally taken as a whole performance, usually with several different layered tracks, while other aspects of our recordings are more looped. Our first two albums were very stripped down -- no expensive mics or pre-amps were used. For our third album we're upgrading to better mics and mic pres for better capture while tracking and for mixing and further tracking. We're planning on working with our friend engineer/producer Justin Colletti."

Ceparano has two main guitars -- a 1967 non reverse Gibson Firebird and a 1966 Gibson ES-175.

"I run through two pedal boards of effects main ones being wah, volume pedal, overdrive, various modulation effects, analog and digital delays, Digitech Space Station, Moog Mooger-Fooger, et-cetera," he says. "And two different stereo amp set ups. The small one being two Fender Blues Jrs and the bigger one being two Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amps."

Ceparano says that the Q-Chord and Omnichord have been a mainstay in the band's sound.

"I think because how unique and spacey they sound and of course we'll always be experimenting with various synths and guitar sounds," he says. "I also think the timed delays on the guitar are a pretty integral part. I frequently count off songs live with the guitar delay and sometimes even compose allowing a timed delay to set the tempo."

The band also uses, basically, the same instruments live as they use in the studio.

"The things we change are the arrangements of the songs. We frequently run songs into one another so the effect is a seamless mix. We may stretch out sections of songs if I happen to be getting exceptional feedback from the guitar," he says. "Also we haven't played out yet using so much as a canned drum loop. We occasionally use sonic loops as segues between songs but all parts of songs performed are played by the musicians in the band live with nothing sequenced or looped."

Ceparano is ambivalent when it comes to the debate about vintage synths versus modeled synth sounds.

"Perhaps vintage synth sounds are preferable but old synths are expensive and difficult to maintain. Synths like the Nord Lead have a very analog quality about them but also have more cutting edge sounds, " he says. "I think that our influences and the way we use what have, play a larger role then the actual hardware we use."

In an earlier incarnation of Soundpool -- when they called themselves Hipsychords -- they played live with a vibraphonist.

"It sounded great, but jazz vibraphone wasn't appropriate on every track. Although to this day it is one of my all time favorite instruments," says Ceparano. "Consequently, on some newer tracks we are currently working on some of the synth sounds we've been using that have a very similar timbre to vibraphone but with a more pitch bending, tripped out, modulated effect on it."

Soundpool are opening for Ulrich Schnauss at shows in Austin and Denton, Texas (July 5 and 6). They are also working on material for a new CD.