Every so often, music comes along, sneaks up behind you and puts a damn groove in your step. Drops your jaw. Does that sort of cheesy-ass thing from old cartoons where the sun comes from behind a cloud, starts smiling and bobbing back and forth, whistling a jolly lil’ tune accompanied by bluebirds and robins (or whatever, I didn’t major in ornithology).
It’s even less often that I find one of these bands in the urban hipster haircut wasteland of Atlanta.
Enter, then, Blue Screen Love Scene, from the front (the front), the back (the back) and both sides:
These three kids, (r-l: Richy, Lauren, Matt: Richy and Lauren formerly of the best band to never record a song, Teenwich, and Matt formerly of the best band to implode over the price of Cheez-Its in China, Engineering) brand themselves “unapologetic dance pop”, and, if that’s a goal, they hit it square on the head. Like Resonator’s 2007 Faves (and also Atlanta natives) One Hand Loves The Other,Blue Screen Love Scene toss electronic manipulation into a blender with a cheeky sense of style. Unlike OHLtO, the equally-abbreviatable BSLS pour a decent amount of no-wave quirk and humor into their sound, and polish with a hazed, bedroom-gaze quality.
Blue Screen Love Scene: Perfumery
“Perfumery” is exactly what was lodged in my head when I wrote the bit above about “jaw-dropping”. You could also file it under “glorious”, “gorgeous” and “how the hell did three kids who never raved come up with this sort of back-room sunrise ambiance”
That’s a question I keep asking myself, and “Perfumery” glides and dreams away any necessity for an answer. There may truly be Paxil and Vicodin in the Atlanta water , if one was to compile the lost-love closet shoebox 4track wisp of the Atlas Sound album’s better songs on a mix tape with the softer, silkier BSLS moments. Lauren’s voice, part instrument made of anticipation, holds the hand of the swells of sound and leads the song along as though she was putting the thing to bed. I’m not gonna say “Eno”, cause that’s obvious. I already said Atlas Sound, so that one’s out of the way. I should also mention, then, that last night, when the new Portishead album utterly and absolutely failed me in that sort of way that only beloved friends you haven’t seen in forever who suddenly change beyond recognition for the worst, I turned to “Perfumery”. Granted, BSLS don’t inject themselves with Northern Soul, but they don’t need to. Not yet, at least.
Blue Screen Love Scene: Cheetah Belly
Other than “I’m A Scientist” (which is streaming on the trippy, HAL 900-meets-Small Wonder BSLS myspace page), “Cheetah Belly” is the best example of all three concise facets of BSLS coming together to make something cute, quirky, memorable and unforgettable. What the hell’s Lauren on about here? Who knows, but it sounds total No New York-via-Berlin back alley, and there’s something about cheetahs, I think. Meanwhile, the laptopsthetic keeps the pace and Matt’s low-slung low-end gives the thing an anchor in an authentic realm, the sort of tune that spreads over that “unapologetic dance pop” sweet spot.
Trixie and I have been blathering, drooling uncontrollably, over these kids for days, weeks really.
shaun: give me a word, or a portmanteau, to describe BSLS
trixie: LUSH
trixie
trixie
trixie
And that, really, is what BSLS are-the new TeenBeat pin-up idols of the thinking DancePop confectionery world. Hot kids who actually dance to their own stuff while dishing out their only expectation-that everyone move along with them. Their music is crush-worthy, and they’re about to set out to prove their live mettle with their first show on March 29th in Athens.
The massive response to the handful of finished tracks they’ve put together is proof of one major thing: this is less a breath of fresh air than a new (world) order. Color me blue, and color me obsessed.
