From the outside, the house where Fleming McWilliams and John Mark Painter live is an unassuming brick bi-level. Step inside however, and you're on the threshold of a colorful recording wonderland, a musical playroom where the duo created their new album, aptly titled The Way We Are.

"We tried to capture us in a situation where we're comfortable." says Fleming. 'That's why we chose the title The Way We Are." "The record sounds like our living room." John adds, with a chuckle.

Illuminated by sunny yellow walls, the living room forfeits sofas, recliners and coffee tables for an enticing array of musical instruments and gear. Vintage guitars hang casually on the walls. Tube microphones on boom stands reach out towards an upright piano and a pump organ. Timpani huddle with congas and bongos. Medieval lutes lean against Indian sitars. Amplifiers, from Pignoses to Marshalls, hum happily. And a former walk-in closet, now a control room, glows with the LED's of multi-tracks, effects racks and a mixing board that bears the humorous warning: "They can have my record when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

As they redefined the laws of interior decorating, Fleming & John also blurred the boundaries between life, work and play. "You're just in your house and working and it's hard to separate," says Fleming. "You work a little bit, you relax a little bit. That's the way we did it. I'd be cooking dinner while John was cutting a guitar part. The whole time you're in your house. it's like the soundtrack to your life."

"You get to work on The Beatles' schedule," says John. "It's like the studio is waiting for you instead of having to bust in and have everything done by a certain day. The pacing allows you to focus on one song at a time. You get to build a different structure for each track."

"Also, if I have an idea on an instrument that I really don't know how to play, I can sit around for six hours practicing. If I was on a studio schedule. I couldn't afford to."

All the happy domestic hours spent experimenting and fine-tuning have yielded Fleming & John's strongest material yet. Brimming with melody and emotion, the music on The Way We Are connects to the three main chakras of pop music lovers - head, heart and feet. From the Mecca-rock modalities of "I'm So Small" and "Sssh!" to the string-soaked spirituality of "Don't Let It Fade Away" to the groovy Dating Game effervescence of "Radiate" to the disco strut of "Sadder Day" and the lilting waltz of "Suppressed Emotions," Fleming & John's pop songs defy categorization as they reveal layers as dense and intricate as a sonic Guernica.

Of their style, Fleming says, "We don't like to use the word alternative, but if we did I'd say we were the alternative to alternative music. Sometimes I describe it as weird pop."

The seamless blending of influences is testament to John's multi-faceted skills as a musician. Aside from co-writing all the material, he pulls off the dazzling hat trick of producing, arranging and playing all the instruments (except drums) on the album. "It's fun when I'm sitting around playing weird instruments and putting together strange combinations. It's exciting for me to hear everything put together," he says modestly.

Meanwhile, his singing partner matches his virtuosity with her lyric and melody writing and mind-boggling range, not only of actual notes but of emotional timbres. A Hindu love goddess, an earnest Girl Scout, a screaming heavy metal empress, an operatic Disney fairy, a salacious soul queen - all of these somehow miraculously co-exist within Fleming's vocal cords.

Long before they ever met, Fleming & John were moving along musical paths that seemed destined to cross. In the small Missouri town where she was crowned "Miss Sweet Corn," Fleming was singing anywhere there was a willing audience - weddings, funerals, school musicals, farm co-op meetings and as you can hear on the charming snippet that introduces the new album, into the family tape recorder at Christmas.

John, who grew up in Miami, was encouraged by a dad who brought home, instead of footballs and air rifles, a bevy of instruments. At age 11, the lad was playing trumpet, saxophone, bass, guitar and piano. A year later, he got his first four-track recorder and his ambitions to be a musical Renaissance man were born.

After meeting at Belmont College in Nashville, the two became inseparable, collaborating on songs, making their nascent recordings on John's four-track and eventually solidifying into a band and a couple. While they chased the elusive grail of a record deal, they signed a major publishing deal and built a large fan base with concerts throughout the Southeast. During this period, John also began a fruitful side career as a session player, contributing to recordings by Indigo Girls, Nanci Griffith and Jewel.

Their first album, Delusions Of Grandeur, released independently in 1995, was quickly picked up by Universal Records, who made it one of their flagship releases. Described by Alternative Press as "pure heavy gorgeousness," It featured the single "I'm Not Afraid," which has recently been used by NBC-TV for their "Thrillogy" promos. Upon their debut, the duo was given a big boost by their friend and fan Ben Folds, who dubbed them "The Carpenters of the '9Os with Led Zeppelin's rhythm section" and invited them to open a few shows for his band.

Their association with the alterna-pop piano man has continued with John co- producing, mixing and adding string arrangements and Fleming singing backgrounds on Folds' recent side project, Fear Of Pop, Vol. 1. John is also writing string charts for the upcoming Ben Folds Five release. In return, Folds sang a background part on "I Fall For You" and co-wrote "Ugly Girl".

"We told Ben at one point he was going to be the honorary executive producer," says Fleming. "At several points during the making of the record we sat down with him and played him what we had. He just has a lot of wisdom. As long as we've been friends we've been really honest with each other."

Now, with a year of domestic creativity behind them and their home recorded masterpiece complete, Fleming & John are prepared to open their front door to the world. Fleming says, "I hope that people get some enjoyment out of the record and that it entertains them. We tried to put different facets of our personalities in, and lyrically things we were thinking about at the time," says Fleming. "We tried not to hold back. It's very much us. It's the way we are."