Breathers flirt with the future

Everyone from Kraftwerk to Prince has played with the ambiguity of the future as an outlet for both personal escape and wild creation. Thanks to the possibilities afforded by drum machines, synthesizers, and samplers, ’80s groups such as the Human League and Gary Numan have created their own blueprints for the future. Atlanta-based synth pop trio Breathers carries the torch of these Reagan-era forerunners, with a vision for the shape of things to come that is both playful and perverse.

“Closer to the Bone” opens the group’s debut EP, Transitions, by taking cues from past visions of the future with Day-Glo synth buildups, antiquated drum machine beats, and lyrics that read like anxious confessions or absurdist fantasies. But rather than reinvigorate classic electro-pop tropes, Breathers creates its own dense version of the future. “When I’m in a dark place I think to myself, ‘should I leave this planet and go sign up to die on another world?’” lyricist and keyboardist Lee Gunselman says. “It comes from the classic Sun Ra philosophy that everything you want on Earth, but is denied, could be yours in outer space.”

But before Breathers flirts with the implications of interplanetary exploration, Gunselman ruminates on what’s at stake in the here and now. “Closer to the Bone,” alludes to his recent move from North Carolina to Atlanta. The song’s first line, “”I want to feel good about a city where there’s only two directions that the trains will go,” pokes fun at MARTA’s two-way rail lines.

As its name implies, Transitions is all about change, from a desire to transform from human to reptilian form that plays out in “Krokodil,” to an actual move to a new city. Midway through, traces of reality are shot into futuristic other worlds, reimagining Gunselman’s anxieties in the vacuum of space. “We intentionally made an A and B side to the EP where reality transitions into fantasy,” drummer Mike Netland says.

“Scientist” closes the EP as lyrics shift from Atlanta to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But for all this talk of anxiety, it’s laughter that glues Breathers together. “Humor is always in our music,” keyboardist Jake Thomson says.

The grandiose synth layers are a tongue-in-cheek homage to the aesthetic of Thomas Dolby and Devo, a sound that has become distinctive to the point of parody. The trio places surreal comedy gurus such as Tim and Eric alongside its musical forerunners. “Comedy is the one thing that connects us 100 percent as a band,” Gunselman says. “We always listen to comedy podcasts when we’re on tour or just hanging out.”

Even Breathers’ label Skeleton Realm, founded by Sam Wagstaff and Warehouse members Doug Bleichner and Josh Hughes, reflects the trio’s sense of humor and its intersection with technology. The label’s website embodies the best/worst aspects of early Web design complete with a pixilated skeleton cursor.

Despite Transitions’ undercurrent of absurdist humor, Breathers’ love of the kitschy ’80s aesthetic is real. Prince’s genre-defining opus, 1999, proved to be a useful blueprint for the sound Breathers tried to capture. 1999 popularized countless instruments and musical motifs that came to define ’80s synth pop and R&B. Prince’s idea of society partying into the apocalypse parallels the fun-yet-fatal future explored throughout Transitions. “1999 is a really big album for us because of the depth that he makes out of these seemingly thin elements,” Thomson says. “Listening to Prince helped us take instruments that have no acoustic depth and mix them in a way that could have weight.”

Transitions’ production reveals as much about Breathers’ intentions as the lyrics and instrumentation. The EP shines with a polished balance of high and low ends. Every synth flourish and snare hit brims with a clarity typical of dance music but rare among the lo-fi garage rock records commonly associated with Atlanta. “I wanted the EP to be kind of sparkly, poppy,” Netland says. “Though ‘Closer to the Bone’ ends with this messy synth outro, so you get a weird blend of clean and gritty.”

Breathers’ production aesthetics, songwriting, and lyrics are constantly at odds: Bright instrumentation with dark lyrics, precise rhythms that perish in electronic drones, and apocalyptic visions carried by goofball grooves define Transitions. “We want to make music that’s dark but also something fun that people can enjoy and respond to physically,” Gunselman says.

And if the human race is lucky in its crash course into tomorrow, our future will be less 1984 and more Breathers.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include lyrics for “Closer to the Bone,” and the personnel who founded Skeleton Realm Records.