Scott Reitherman is a mythmaker. Whether he’s overdubbing (ad infinitum) for his multi-instrumental fuzz pop band Throw Me the Statue or co-steering the ship of the homespun music collective label Baskerville Hill Records in Seattle, Reitherman understands the intangible character of the industry. When speaking about the family label he created in 2005 with his college friend Sam Beebe, he’s frank about the importance of feather puffing on the internet for self-promotion — and survival. Free of publicity agents or press campaigns, it’s a reality for this second wave of D.I.Y. artists that Reitherman finds himself a part of to create their own nuanced myth in webland.

Reitherman and Beebe even chose a mythical place name for the label, culled from the Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles and their residence at the time on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. “It had a nice way to tie into this myth but also the reality of where we actually lived,” says Reitherman.

All of Reitherman’s talk about myth construction doesn’t mean Baskerville Hill is counted among the other MySpace/music blog lame ducks though. High art or MySpace art aside, Baskerville Hill’s web presence and authenticity is no lie, and Reitherman wants good music to be at the forefront for the label’s three main musical projects — Beebe performs under the name Black Bear (his album The Cinnamon Phase was the first album to drop on Baskerville) — and along with Throw Me the Statue, there’s Jamie Spiess, whose minimalist indie folk oeuvre Husbands, Love Your Wives will finally get released this year.

This kind of hands-on involvement was no doubt attractive to Secretly Canadian, the indie label that recently added Throw Me the Statue to its notable roster. But it was ultimately Throw Me the Statue’s debut Moonbeams, which found its way to the label’s lap through a friend of Reitherman’s, that won them over. Since Reitherman hadn’t personally sent it, he forgot about the prospect and ended up putting out Moonbeams himself on Baskerville Hill. To his surprise, the Indiana label came knocking and after the strangeness of the proceedings settled, Reitherman agreed to Secretly’s very non-mythical proposal, which includes a re-release of Moonbeams this month, with a slightly truncated tracklisting. “I kind of came around to thinking that I would have my own special place on their roster. They also have Jens Lekman, who in many ways is similar to me,” Reitherman says.

The two indie pop bands recently finished a week-long stint together that saw Reitherman, the bedroom artist, learning how to make the switch from singing to his scruffy tabby cat at home to singing in a five-piece band full of multi-instrumentalists. At shows, Throw Me the Statue makes a point to engage the audience in fun ways. And they do quite naturally: vocals peak, multi-part harmonies coalesce, and melodica, accordion, glockenspiel and other sundry instruments pop up on these live sprees. For a couple shows with Lekman, the band even bought shakers to pass out to the audience and Reitherman toys with the idea of possibly selling hand-decorated maracas at future concerts.

When not on the stage or working on getting other people’s records out, Reitherman takes a careful, Guided by Voices-like approach to creating his own music. “I really like the idea of the collage,” he says. “You see it in the artwork for every album and the way Robert Pollard writes lyrics.” Even though many tracks on Moonbeams are autobiographical, the lyrics come in that spliced vignette style that Pollard made so famous. “Young Sensualists” is about the time Reitherman spent in Europe and the tearful fracturing of relationships because of a girl he met. “Take It or Leave It” and “This Is How We Kiss” are inspired by an unrequited love. “Moonbeams” is about a connective dream he had concerning his grandfather.

Despite all the lushly orchestrated storytelling, Reitherman finds it funny that journalists call Moonbeams a “summertime” record. “I recorded it in the middle of winter,” he says. Whether it’s the real summer or the mythic summer in listeners’ hearts, the cover artwork sums up the album succinctly: two topless women diving into a lake. “I licensed that photograph from a Norwegian photographer named Heidi Johansson. Basically, the overall idea I wanted was for it to be an album that is honest and autobiographical about being young in the city.” Consider that myth accomplished.

www.myspace.com/throwmethestatue