Defying the conventional logic that a band will do infinitely better if it has a record deal, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are proving that a truly independent artist can gain a major following. Clap -- based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia -- have already sold nearly 17,000 copies of their self-released debut, all thanks to word of mouth. And while major-label artists make only about a buck a record, the Clap guys are making a whopping eight dollars per disc -- putting their take so far at more than $130,000. Not too shabby for an album recorded for less than ten grand and distributed by the band itself via countless trips to the post office.

"Everything started to change as soon as I started wearing brownish-yellow socks," says singer and principal songwriter Alec Ounsworth. "I seriously think our success has to do with our look."

He's kidding. The quintet may not be male-model material, but Clap's New Wave-tinged disc has more enduring charms. With their serpentine guitar parts, lock-step rhythms, Ounsworth's nasal sing-speak and a buoyancy weighed down only by the band's own nonchalance, Clap have garnered critical praise that frequently compares the group to artists such as Talking Heads, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. More precisely, tracks including "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" and "Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)" swivel and shake like a symphony that Peanuts characters might dance to if they were nerdy college kids.

The band recently signed a distribution deal so that its members (Ounsworth, Lee Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Tyler Sargent and Sean Greenhalgh) can cut back a bit on postal costs, but they're forgoing choosing a label until -- rather, unless -- they have to. "I'm not going to sign with anybody who can't accept the fact that I only do what I want to do," says Ounsworth. "Besides, we're not in any hurry, and at least now I'm out of debt."