Prog lite

“We wanted to do something that kind of busted the doors open,’’ says Korkidis, whose band hits the Middle East Upstairs next Thursday as part of a spring and summer tour. “I think we felt a sense of stagnation doing darker kind of stuff. I wanted to go from bleak to Technicolor. [Keyboardist-trumpeter] Sean [Will] and I come from jazz and classical backgrounds, but we’ve always played in rock bands.’’

Together with drummer Alex Mihm, the three members of what began as a sextet began improvising ideas as a follow-up to 2008’s debut, “I Am Your Bastard Wings,’’ that put a brighter spin on Eksi Ekso’s brooding post-rock approach. The new material sounded good, they thought, and felt even better.

“We just found that a lot of the stuff we were doing was more upbeat and synth-based and fun,’’ Korkidis recalls. “At that particular time we started to realize, ‘This works with the three of us, so why do we need to deal with a democratic process of six people … as far as doing something that’s a little bit funky, and maybe a little bit more open, in terms of what we’re willing to try?’ I thought as musicians we could do a lot more.’’

Korkidis admits that thinning the group’s ranks wasn’t the easiest of experiences or conversations (original viola player Beth Holub continues to collaborate with the streamlined version of the band). But the guitarist, who also plays bass and keys, sounds energized by the change in direction and the new album’s dramatically dynamic shifts and multi-tiered levels of melody would seem to prove his instincts right.