By Wes Orshoski 35 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - When he founded Devotchka as an "experiment" more than nine years ago, singer Nick Urata's idea was to blur the line between the musics of East and West, between gypsy and mariachi, tubas and theremins, bouzoukis and guitars.

There was a "pining away for older times and exotic, faraway places," he says. "It was a time when I thought, 'How the hell am I ever going to get there? Why don't we try to get there in the music?"'

At the time, success meant merely being able to keep this experiment afloat, and make some money doing it. While that remains a concern almost a decade later (the group's five indie releases have sold only a combined 80,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan), a lot has changed.

If co-manager Mat Hall recalls days when he had to convince everyone from labels to writers that Devotchka's music wasn't some "world-music nightmare," he and the band now find themselves in such unlikely positions as having to decline fast-food giant McDonald's request to use a Devotchka song in a commercial.

For the majority of listeners in and outside the music industry, Devotchka's meld of unlikely musical bedfellows has proved a hard pill to swallow. But the critically lauded group and its management's long-term strategy of earning one fan at a time is inching toward pay dirt.

Nearing the March 18 release of Devotchka's sixth album, "A Mad and Faithful Telling," Urata's vision — of creating cinematic music capturing the feeling of "black-and-white movies from another country" and the accordion wedding jams of his childhood — is enjoying some of the best media attention of the band's career.

TASTEMAKERS TAKE NOTE

In addition to binders of glowing press, Devotchka has been anointed a band to watch by the likes of NPR and Santa Monica, California, public radio station KCRW. Such noncommercial radio fans as KEXP Seattle and KCMP Minneapolis will spotlight the group on the air next month from its performances at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas.

The band will make its first appearance at Southern California's annual Coachella festival this year and will appear on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" before embarking on U.S. and European tours. And with its new album being released by indie label Anti-, the Colorado band joins such highly regarded artists as Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Neko Case.

Things are congealing for Devotchka for a variety of reasons. A turning point was the appearance of its music in the 2006 film "Little Miss Sunshine." That created a spike in sales for Devotchka, but not as much as the band and its management would have liked. The soundtrack did lead to increased media attention and supporting slots for acts as varied as Donovan and Marilyn Manson.

The Anti- deal follows an attempt by Seymour Stein to sign Devotchka to Sire, which Urata says was stymied by the "suits" at parent company Warner, who viewed the band as unmarketable. It's the type of thinking that tested Urata's faith through the years, as rent bills neared and the band slept on floors.

"It just seemed like labels, agents and talent buyers were like, 'What am I going to do with this wacky band with a tuba?"' Urata says. "I think that end of the business has gotten kind of narrow-minded. If you look at any period of time when music has changed for the better, it was always someone coming out of left field."

With fellow East-meets-West ensembles like Gogol Bordello also enjoying higher visibility, manager Hall is leery of listeners attacking Devotchka for jumping on a bandwagon. "They've been doing this for nine years," he says. "I see them as pioneers."

Reuters/Billboard