Raincoat’s a good fit

As indie musicians in their 20s, Amber Rubarth and Alex Wong of the Paper Raincoat admittedly know little about what it feels like to be a middle-aged woman named Grace contemplating her life choices. But Grace’s tale is one they tell on their delightfully tuneful, folk-pop debut EP, “Safe in the Sound.’’ The decision to craft a concept record around a character so far outside themselves was part of the appeal for the pair, who work on solo and other group projects as well. “It’s been about finding how to empathize with these characters that seem to have nothing to do with you and where the commonalities are,’’ says Wong. We chatted with the duo by phone from New York, where they have just finished work on the new, yet-to-be-titled Paper Raincoat album, out Oct. 1.

Q. So will the new album chronicle Grace’s continuing adventures?

Rubarth: Absolutely. I don’t think we really have a start and end to the story. We have characters that we are looking in on and watching them do certain things and writing about that, but it feels like it’s just little glimpses of a world that’s existing.

Wong: Part of the thing that I like about it is it doesn’t feel like we’re writing this stuff; it just feels like we’re watching it. So who knows? Maybe Grace will join the Peace Corps on the next record.

Q. What do you get out of working together that you don’t get alone?

Rubarth: It’s really nice having the two projects, because the solo stuff is so personal. It’s about my life, and it’s kind of therapy for anything that’s going on. But this project is really nice because it’s so imaginative and it just feels more creative in a lot of ways.

Q. A lot of different sounds happen on the album, from very folk-y stuff to more electronic textures. Does that reflect two different sides of both of you, or does each of you bring specific tastes to the table?

Wong: We have just been writing these songs and listening to the songs, and they tell you what they are. I don’t think we’ve ever approached them from, we’re going to put this instrument on this song. It’s been more, this song sounds like it needs an old parlor clarinet solo in the middle. The emotions we were trying to get across with the record, we did want something that got big and cinematic but also something that was intimate, so those sort of things decided what particular sounds we were using.

Q. And what song doesn’t need an old parlor clarinet solo?

Wong: I’ve been trying to tell Jay-Z that same thing for so long [laughs].

Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com.