Miracles of Modern Science - as their more intellectual bandname might suggest - had more posh beginnings than most up and coming independent bands. Well, until you factor in a little bit of social networking nerddom.

"We started recording our debut EP in our senior year at Princeton," vocalist/upright bass player Evan Younger explains, "Josh (Hirshfeld, mandolin and vocals) was then the social chair of Terrace Club, one of Princeton's eating clubs. We recorded drums in the living room there, and the rest of the instruments in Josh's bedroom. Then once we graduated, we recorded vocals at my apartment and mixed the EP there. Considering it was so piecemeal, and all done on very entry-level digital equipment, we're pleased with how it turned out."

That album also features bandmates Geoff McDonald on cello and Kieran Ledwidge on violin, and Tyler Pines on drums - Pines' role being perhaps the most "normal" as far as the usual band configuration is concerned. Miracles of Modern Science, in a fascinating twist on the usual five-piece indie-rock band, craft their tunes using traditional string instruments, vocals, and drums - nary a guitar or synth in sight, thank you very much.

"Our usual tag line is that we're "a Civil War string band shot into outer space on a giant disco ball spaceship," Younger laughs.

And as for that aforementioned social networking: "Josh and I met on Facebook (eesh) the summer before our freshman year," Younger says, "it was like, 'hey, you like jazz? I like jazz! You like the Pixies? I like the Pixies! You're looking to start a band when we get to school? I'm...' I'm not even kidding. It really was that dorky."

Dorks and nerds, as most clever people now know, are destined to rule the world, of course - Miracles of Modern Science being no exception. With Younger and Hirshfeld both skilled at a variety of instruments, Younger says that they tried a little bit of every genre before settling on their current sound.

"We got to school, met for real, and started writing songs and performing as a duo," he explains, "our earliest collaborations were all over the place in terms of style and instrumentation - mostly campy stuff and genre spoofs: country, electro pop, sea chanties, and the like. At one of our early performances at a campus open mic night, we saw Kieran playing electric violin in a jam band. The band was nothing special, but we could tell Kieran was a rock star, so we asked him to play with us."

The band evolved even further from there.  "Geoff was the music director of my a cappella group (speaking of dorky), and we bonded by geeking over music theory. Tyler was a friend's brother - he had a reputation as a jazz drum wunderkind (he'd won some Down Beat award for being the best high school drummer in America). So when we decided we wanted drums to make our doohickey into a 'real band,' we asked him to join."

And Miracles of Modern Science's string-based rock sound was unintentionally born. "Basically, Josh and I brought  these people together because we thought they were great musicians, and we wanted to hang out and make music with them," Younger chuckles, "not because of any concept we had of a string-based rock band. We didn't settle right away on the all-strings-and-percussion setup, but we found that the mandolin, violin, cello, upright bass, and drums blended in a natural way, whereas the guitar tended to dominate the texture and relegate the strings to a decorative role. So we nixed the guitar, and we haven't looked back."

That's not to say the band is limited to chamber music or minuets - don't be fooled by the instrumentation. Their sound is more reminiscent of a hipper Ra Ra Riot or a happier Arcade Fire - and we say only "reminiscent," because Miracles of Modern Science have really created something that's both hard to pin down and new in its approach, not in small part because of the band members' wide range of personal musical influences.

"Taken together, the five of us listen to every style of music out there," Younger says, "Geoff wrote a thesis on Mahler, but he was raving about a Wilco concert last week. It all comes to the table when we're writing, if not in the most obvious ways. We're definitely influenced by post-rock artists like Talk Talk and Jim O'Rourke - we often indulge ourselves with epic instrumental buildups that push most of our songs past the five minute mark. But we're also obsessed with structure; we always try to make sure any edgy instrumental sections meld with the pop elements into a coherent whole. We're trying to use stringed instruments to their full potential, hopefully making sounds people haven't heard before in a pop or rock setting."

Miracles of Modern Science are still at the close end of their band career, with several of the bandmates still toiling away at full-time jobs; but that is likely to change sooner rather than later. "We're putting together some out-of-state shows for the fall," Younger says, "and we hope to get to do at least a small East Coast tour before the year's over. We'll definitely be recording more soon - we've got four or five new songs we hope to release either as a bunch of singles or another EP. Our budget's still low, but we're trying to branch out into more sophisticated recording techniques and incorporate more analog equipment into the process."

They incorporate a little American history into their work, too, if all of the artistic renderings of none other than Abraham Lincoln on their website and on-the-way disc packaging are any indication. So what gives with the myriad homages to Honest Abe?

"See, we're emancipating strings from their long oppression in rock music," Younger says with a wink of his eye, "just like Abraham Lincoln emancipa... uh... well..."