Breathers challenge perceptions of synth-pop on their new album Designed to Break. Each song is a refreshingly honest dive into the modern human psyche balanced with vibrant synth lines that capture the imagination and drip like dew into our parched subconscious. Despite the pop moniker, Breathers defy categorization, drawing inspiration from the Sophisti-pop movement and the cryptic poetry of Steely Dan. Even the album title is multi-faceted, referencing both the analog gear that Breathers use to craft their sound and the disposable nature of modern technology.

Over the past few years, Breathers have laid the groundwork for Designed to Break with a series of insightful tracks featuring T. Lee Gunselman and Jake Thomson on synths and vocals, with Mike Netland providing live drums and sequencing. The result is a danceable mix of organic and synthetic sounds that warp traditional song structures into something subversive yet enticing. Throughout this album, lead singer and lyricist Gunselman offers thoughtful observations on isolation and anxiety, focusing on the corresponding weaknesses and strengths of the human spirit, and the importance of listening to oneself apart from the cacophony of an increasingly commercialized world. Each topic is couched in a comforting sensitivity which plays off the spacious chords and delicate melodies of Designed to Break.

Both sunny and cerebral, there’s an intangible generosity in the way Gunselman expounds on society and culture while the band weave jazz-influenced chords into Mediterranean hues. On Designed to Break, Breathers have jettisoned everything that doesn't shimmer and fused what remains into a rejuvenating cosmic polyphony. Never has a synth record felt so intrinsically human. Designed to Break is out 9/12 on LP/Digital via Irrelevant Music.

"Get Rich and Live Forever" is now available at zackmex.bandcamp.com and Hard Copies available by request.

Hello we are Art Contest. We are a group who play instruments fast and sometimes slow.

"Jordan Reynolds spent much of her youth collaborating, the 24-year-old a key cog in the indie dream pop produced by Bowling Green’s Buffalo Rodeo. A slew of promising releases spawned DIY tours in college towns and metropolitan areas across the United States, but a proper LP never culminated. Rose Hotel has existed, even as just a small figment in Reynolds’ mind, for at least a couple years. The project has origins as an outlet for songs and ideas that got shelved in Buffalo Rodeo. Her sharp observations examine the fragile nature of relationships, the awkward and painful journey of watching the lust of youth fade into the stern realities of adulthood. Her lyrics sear with the honesty and urgency of 3 a.m. iPhone notes, the kind of morning after meditations that are scribbled onto the back of receipts. The wisdom you cling to when the muse disappears. Today Reynolds unveiled single “Honestly,” the first track from Rose Hotel’s EP “Always A Good Reason” due out in August on Fir Trade Records. The song is tinged with classic country influences, Reynolds’ pure voice drenched in three-chords-and-the-truth authenticity. It plays like song you’d find browsing the radio dial in the 1970s, somewhere between Nixon and Reagan. Back when the voices of Emmylou Harris and Joni Mitchell cut through the hiss of A.M. static. The song is penned to “a man that’s losing too,” her wise and weary lyrics an exercise in acceptance and knowing when it’s time to go. “A woman’s only half her words and half what she decides to do,” Reynolds sings..." -Fringe Music