As keyboardist Peggy Wang from New York indie pop quartet The Pains of Being Pure At Heart will tell you, there's no pain in being the only girl in a band. 

"They aren't weird, creepy boys or anything," joked Wang of her bandmates. "I don't think I ask for special treatment, except that I am pretty lazy about carrying heavy things. I have really weak arms."

Slated to perform at next month's Jue Music and Art Festival, Wang and the boys make their Beijing debut at Yugong Yishan tomorrow, where her last name is sure to spark some local pride. 

"I guess you can expect me to speak some Chinese, at least a couple of key phrases," said the New Orleans-raised Chinese-American. "I expect China to be a pretty eye-opening experience, as none of us have ever been."

Borrowed from the title of a children's story written by a friend, the band's name suggests maintaining innocence in a realistic world - in their case, the overcritical world of Brooklyn, New York. 

However, since their self-titled debut album in 2009, their sunny, pan-indie sound has carried them far in a short period of time. They have garnered praise from Pitchfork Media to the New York Times, where critics have indulged in prideful mapping of the group's indie DNA.

Comparisons to the Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine, overused adjectives such as "jangly" and "lo-fi" and being branded as "crossover alternative" and "shoegaze" have filled blog posts.

"I'm much more likely to gaze at the ceiling. My shoes aren't that interesting," Wang said of the shoegaze label, a term coined in the late 1980s referring to musicians who stand still during live performances in a detached, non-confrontational state. Thankfully, the term that everyone comes back to, including the band, is good old "pop," which in the Internet age isn't a bad word anymore. 

 "The songs certainly have a pop song structure and we are a self-professed 'pop music' band," Wang admitted.

Furthering their pop pedigree is latest album Belong. It was produced by legendary British mixing duo Alan Moulder and Flood, who helped define 1980s and 1990s alternative music and recorded many of the band's idols, including the Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine. But Wang explained the experience wasn't as intimidating as the young band expected.

"Flood let us use his Grammy as a percussion instrument on 'Heaven's Gonna Happen Now,'" said Wang. "He also brought [drummer] Alex cupcakes for his birthday, which happened to be the first day of recording. That was incredibly sweet, especially since he hadn't even met us before."

However, like other bands of the Internet era, having access to the history of rock music at your fingertips can spark as much innovation as regurgitation. Compound this with at least two band members (including Wang) having worked in online media, and it's easy to feel their music suffers from slight hyper-awareness. 

But overall sweetness to their sound with added depth of lyrical content ensures the band enters a collective of fond indie memories, maintaining the playfulness necessary for a group named after a children's story.

When: Saturday, February 25, 9 pm

Where: Yugong Yishan, 3-2 Zhangzizhong Lu, Dongcheng district

Tickets: 120 yuan (pre-booked)/150 yuan (door)

Contact:  6404 2711/187 0113 3908