MUNNYCAT embraces the past and the present with “till death do us art.”

Khaled Tabbara and Katianne Timko-Tabbara have been making music, together or apart, for decades, but “till death do us art” is the first release for either of them on vinyl, a format declared dead in the late ’80s.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of something I’ve made than this physical vinyl,” Tabbara said. “This is a combination of all the things I like to do — making music with you (his wife), but it’s also graphic design, it’s photography, it’s storytelling, it’s theater … It’s all the things I love about creating in one physical thing that you can keep and give to your kids or your grandkids.”

At the same time, they probably won’t be using the method many ’80s acts used to get those slabs of vinyl heard, which is extensive touring.

Few if any acts with local ties — Tabbara is from Austintown and Timko-Tabbara is from Hubbard and the husband-and-wife duo now calls southern California home — have been more successful at embracing the singles-driven market of the streaming era and reaching listeners through non-traditional paths.

In addition to streaming, MUNNYCAT’s songs can be heard in national and international television commercials and on television series such as “Dickinson” on AppleTV+ and “Love Is Blind” on Netflix. Most of its singles came with an accompanying video, not the low-budget, low-fi lyric video clips that are increasingly the norm, but full-scale productions with costumes and exotic locations. The western-themed “Honest” has nearly 200,000 views on YouTube, and their most recent clip, “ditto,” is set in a mansion and features Timko-Tabbara wearing everything from prison orange to a rapid-fire montage of slinky dresses.

The couple has talked about a vinyl release since starting MUNNYCAT, but the two began taking it seriously when one of its weekly “MUNNYCAT longshots” paid off.

“Let’s email Abbey Road Studios and see if they’ll let us in,” Timko-Tabbara said.

Not only did they get a response, they got an opportunity to master the recordings for the vinyl pressing at the London studio forever associated with The Beatles. They also got to pick their engineer, selecting Christopher Wright because of his work with LCD Soundsystem and Bjork.

“Someone who did James Taylor is good at their job, but are they going to be able to handle those big electric bass sounds,” Tabbara said. “Christian was our guy.”

The album might have been out by the spring of 2024, but while they were in London in November 2023, Tabbara’s childhood best friend, Nick Cordova, was killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident in Denver. With both of his parents deceased, the burden of making arrangements for his body and organizing memorial services fell to the couple. Their grief influenced the album’s title.

“What happened as a result of grief and how we were processing it was realizing that you could go at any time,” Timko-Tabbara said. “What we love and what brings us close to each other, what brings us the most purpose in our lives is making art. When we got married, we had a big neon sign that said, ’till death we do art.’ Just reflecting on everything we’ve gone through, it was a lightning bolt for the concept of the album. No matter what life throws at us, we’re going to keep making art. This is what brings us happiness, and we’re going to keep making things until we’re not anymore.”

That wasn’t the only reason for the delay. A band that puts as much effort into the presentation of its music as MUNNYCAT does wasn’t going to be satisfied with plain black vinyl in a flimsy nondescript cover.

They considered different possibilities, including scratch and sniff vinyl. Not a scratch-and-sniff cover like The Raspberries in the early ’70s but a record that gave off a scent as it was played. Turns out the idea was wildly expensive, the scent didn’t last very long and it smelled chemical-like.

Instead, they opted for 3D vinyl. The record itself is transparent, half red and half blue, just like the lens in a pair of 3D glasses. Listeners can hold up the vinyl to the cover and the sleeve to get a 3D effect. But that also took some trial and error, talking with different companies that said, ‘Yeah, we think we can do it, but you might want to consider putting a pair of 3D glasses in the sleeve just in case,” until they found a Pittsburgh manufacturer who was willing to work them until they got it right.

The album’s 14 tracks include some of their most popular songs — “don’t stop (drip, drip, drop) and “taco truck (oh, wtf?)” — and alternate versions of other previously released songs, such as a version of “millionaire (jz + beyonce)” that uses a string arrangement created by Todd Maki of Youngstown’s Legacy Scoring Orchestra that was used for the couple’s 2023 wedding and ‘howya like me now?” with a guest appearance by rapper Grizzzly.

But several tracks will be heard for the first time when the album is released Aug. 8 on CD, cassette and minidisc as well as vinyl. And MUNNYCAT has a backlog of songs written after the album was completed that the pair hopes to start releasing once folks have had some time with the album’s songs.

An album release show is scheduled Aug. 13 in West Hollywood, Calif., but for now that is the only live date on the calendar.

They do want to play a hometown gig. In conjunction with the album, Timko-Tabbara is making a four-part docuseries about MUNNYCAT, with part one focused on Tabbara’s previous band The Zou and part two looking at her musical journey. They don’t have a date or a venue, but the tentative plan is to play an October show that would double as a local MUNNYCAT release show and a reunion of The Zou, including doing songs from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which was a Halloween tradition for The Zou.

But how many shows MUNNYCAT should play is a topic of frequent debate and shifting opinions between them. Time spent touring means less time making music in their home studio.

“We can play a show for 40 people that’s meaningful in our heart and nothing can compete with that,” Tabbara said. “Then there is the power of mass media. If your song is in a movie or a TV show, it can hit millions and millions. What is our goal, to reach as many humans as we possibly can? If that’s the case, if it’s in the right Tik Tok, you can get millions of likes and listeners.

“I come from the world of getting in a van and playing for people, but I’m learning I can’t discount the connection we make with people with music in non-live ways.”