Throw out the résumés, impressive though they may be. Forget about the innate singing/songwriting talent and chops, no matter how indisputable. The straw that stirs the erotic elixir that is the new noir-pop duo Janey Winterbauer and Marc Perlman is taste -- the kind of taste that remains the sole domain of audiophiles and song junkies but which, every once in a while, morphs from serious music-listening into stunning music-making. "I like all that mind-numbingly depressing [stuff]," said Winterbauer, when asked what draws her to Perlman's songs, showcased on a new disc by the pair. "I went over to his house and heard some of the demos and I thought: These songs are so completely and utterly sad. Like Hank Williams on a bender with Vicodin. Totally up my alley. But I think his decision to have a member of the fairer sex interpret his material was a good one, because it brings a little more love and a little less despair to the songs."

Said Perlman: "Her voice just fit the material. I'm not really a singer, I'm not that confident with it. But the other part is, when I write, I think of a female voice. Janey is more like a '60s-'70s French chanteuse -- like Françoise Hardy and Jane Birkin, and those French pop singers that Serge Gainsbourg always worked with. She has something that you just don't hear anymore; she doesn't sing like anybody in town."

Winterbauer, late of Astronaut Wife, the dream-pop outfit led by her husband, Christian Erickson, has most recently been seen onstage singing with Golden Smog and various tribute shows. Perlman, late of the Jayhawks and the Smog, has emerged as another ace songwriter from the fertile Jayhawks factory, which in the last two years has produced solo works by fellow 'Hawks Mark Olson, Gary Louris and Tim O'Reagan (the latter two make cameos on the disc, along with sometime 'Hawk Kraig Johnson).

"The Jayhawks was a band full of writers, for better or worse," said Perlman. "The good thing is that there's a wealth of material and never a shortage of songs. The bad is that there's only so many records you can put out as the Jayhawks. One of the reasons Golden Smog was formed was as an outlet to get more songs recorded.

"[Songwriting is] something I had to learn to do. It wasn't my thing with the Jayhawks, and it wasn't something I was interested in. But when you play in a band for that long, you get exposed to the art of songwriting and you end up learning so much about it just from working in the background with those guys."

Produced by Perlman and local pop czar Ed Ackerson, the duo's six-song EP "25:32:47," on the Susstones label, recalls the dark psychedelia of such early '80s outfits as the Rain Parade and Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls. And this could just be the beginning. Winterbauer, a mother of two young boys who also records with her husband in the couple's home studio, reports that Perlman has more songs, and that the duo wants to put together a permanent band. Then again. ...

"We're never performing," said Perlman. "It's all about the myth. You may never see us in the same room together again."

Jim Walsh is a Minneapolis writer and musician who performs as the Mad Ripple.