Given their formal classical music training, it may be a tad funny that Wisconsin brothers Robert and David Perlick Molinari are being touted as the Next Big Things in electronic music. The duo behind French Horn Rebellion grew up in Mequon, WI, where Robert ruled the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra with his — – here it comes — – French horn skills and David got into Vanderbilt University on the strength of playing the bassoon.

“We used to play every year at church every Christmas,” 23-year-old Robert remembers. “That was the beginning, I guess.”

David, now 27, later transferred to NYU, majoring in music composition and getting a job out of college working at a production house, where his little brother — – then a French horn performance major at Northwestern — came to intern alongside him in 2005. There were two things that summer that served as catalysts for their conversion to electronica.

One: they began working on projects scoring promo work for VH1 and MTV. “Basically we started doing these commercials,” Robert says, “but they weren’t hiring musicians to play. The music was made on a computer. So as a French horn performance major, you’re like, ‘uh…this isn’t good for me. Nobody needs French horn players anymore!'”

Two: David began producing an EP for some mutual friends, a little group called MGMT. Robert assisted him. “At that time, it was still all mostly alt-rock and country-rock, pop songs and stuff,” he remembers. “We realized that you could use synthesizers. They were the first rel artists that we worked with that were like, ‘to make art, you have to do what inspires you. You just have to make it and dig it.’ ” (At that point, as well, Robert realized creative speaking, he was somewhat limited by the French horn. “I couldn’t express all the ideas I had on the A string,” he laughs.)

The two put down the wind and the brass and turned to their computers, composing their own brand of electro-pop. Over time, they began remixing music and eventually formed a friendship with Brazilian group Database, with whom they are currently on tour and collaborated with on the track, “Beaches and Friends.”

“Beaches and Friends” is also the name of the EP they released online on August 11 (a full album is expected next summer). The songs are fun, bright and catchy. They move and shake with grooves, synths, beats and all the accoutrements associated with dance-pop. (They have managed to incorporate their real instrumental backgrounds into some tracks, like their namesake track. A recent live performance found Robert on top of a PA, wailing on his French horn).

But the songs are sharply formulated, built on narrative ideas and symmetry. There is a method behind the musical madness.

” ‘New Florida‘ is about a place in Florida called Coral Castles,” Robert explains. “There’s this guy who made this giant castle out of coral rock all by himself. The whole song is symmetrical and uses only five pitches because he only had five tools to work with; he has this crazy belief in this offset of geometry about balance — it’s like pseudo-science. The song is a mirror of that, it’s like a palindrome. It starts and ends the same way. ”

“We do stuff like that,” he continues, “we don’t just write songs because they sound cool. There’s a story, there’s a reason. We write everything purposefully.”

Even when they remix other songs, they focus on a narrative to build upon as opposed to a sonic hook. He notes a remix they’re doing for an A-list ’80’s rock group that’s centering around a lyric which will evolve into a tale about alien abduction.

This theme — moving through a musical story — is underscored with the monthly party that French Horn Rebellion has been throwing around New York City (where the native Midwesterners now reside). The Brass Magic Dance Party often starts out early in the night with romantic stand-bearers like The Temptations and evolves into Donna Summer, only to be capitulated by DJ sets with friends like Kap10Kurt and Savoir Adore and of course, electric live performances by French Horn Rebellion themselves.

“What we try to do with the night is take the people that come on a journey from when they arrive to when they leave,” Robert says. “We travel through music.”

Writers Note: YOU CAN TRAVEL WITH FRENCH HORN REBELLION AND FRIENDS TONIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY AT SANTOS PARTY HOUSE. RSVP FOR THE BRASS MAGIC DANCE PARTY HERE