Breathers take on MARTA with ‘Colored Lines’

New single challenges Atlanta’s race and class perceptions concerning public transportation.

Breathers: Colored Lines" b/w "I'll Never Know" cassingle."
Photo credit: Courtesy Skeleton Realm Records

? ?? <a href=”http://breathers.bandcamp.com/album/colored-lines”>Colored Lines by Breathers</a> ?
Today, Breathers have unveiled a cassette single via Skeleton Realm Records, featuring two new numbers, “Colored Lines” b/w “I’ll Never Know.” Both songs expand upon the lush, electronic pop the group wielded with its debut EP, Transitions, blending a robotic fascination with synthesizers and a dose of warm-blooded song craft.
?
? Lee Gunselman (vocals, synthesizer, sequencing), Mike Netland (percussion, sequencing), and Jake Thomson (vocals, synthesizers) laid the blueprint for much of these sounds with previous single “Closer to the Bone” — which includes, among other things, criticism aimed specifically at MARTA. With “Colored Lines,” the group embarks on a real-time journey via Atlanta’s public transportation system, documenting every moment spent in Lindbergh Center Station Limbo, and every Five Points Station stall along the way. The song is bent on illustrating the potential the train and the bus hold in improving the city’s quality of life, and the damaging effects of race and class perceptions when it comes to MARTA. Indeed, the title of the A-side, “Color Lines,” is rife with innuendo referencing both MARTA’s red, gold, blue, and green rail lines, and the systematic division of race that surrounds them.
?
? “I wrote ‘Colored Lines’ when I first started riding MARTA, about a year into living here,” Gunselman says. “I avoided the train. I didn’t know many people who took it. I worked in Buckhead, and my car was out of commission for a time, so I had to use it. Jake lived near the Inman Park/Reynoldstown stop and I’d go to his place to work on songs. ‘Colored Lines’ is a subjective song, written from my personal experiences, but it conveys how unreliable MARTA can be. The song developed as people view it as a joke — hearing conversations from people being afraid of it expanding into their neighborhoods, bringing crime with it, which is all racially motivated,” he adds. “If people didn’t have such a negative mindset about it more money could be pumped into it. The whole idea of Atlanta is that it used to be called Terminus because of all the trains. There is no shortage of lines here. But what’s more concerning is that traffic in this city is such a problem: it’s dangerous, it’s not good for the environment. If the train ran later and was more accessible it would transform the city.”
?
? Breathers are on the road playing shows through November, sharing dates with Athens’ avant-garde pop mainstays Reptar, for what’s dubbed the “Bad Dog Tour 2015.” The tour kicks-off tonight (Oct. 12) in Charlotte, N.C., and wraps up Nov. 23 in Indianapolis, Ind. See the full list of tour dates below, including an Oct. 17 stop at the Mammal Gallery with Reptar and Shampoo.
?
? ??? Oct. 12: Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre
? Oct. 13: Washington DC - U Street Music Hall
? Oct. 14: Charlottesville, VA - the Southern
? Oct. 15: Norfolk, VA - the Parlor
? Oct. 17: Atlanta, GA -The Mammal Gallery w/ Reptar, and Shampoo
? Oct. 23: Nashville, TN - the High Watt
? Oct. 24: Macon, GA - Tattnall Square Park
? Oct. 25: Birmingham, AL - Saturn
? Oct. 26: Hattiesburg, MS - Thirsty Hippo
? Oct. 27: Baton Rouge, LA - Spanish Moon
? Oct. 28: New Orleans, LA - Gasa Gasa
? Oct. 29: Houston, TX - Fitzgerald’s
? Oct. 30: San Antonio, TX - Paper Tiger
? Oct. 31 Austin, TX - the Sidewinder
? Nov. 1: Dallas, TX - Three Links - Deep Ellum, TX
? Nov. 3: Tucson, AZ - club congress
? Nov. 4: San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
? Nov. 5: Los Angeles, CA - Club Bahia
? Nov. 6: San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
? Nov. 10: Portland, OR - Star Theatre
? Nov. 11: Vancouver, BC - the Biltmore Cabaret
? Nov. 12: Seattle, WA - the Vera Project
? Nov. 13: Bellingham, WA — the Shakedown
? Nov. 14: Walla Walla, WA - Main Street Studios
? Nov. 16: Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
? Nov. 17: Fort Collins, CO - Downtown Artery
? Nov. 18: Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
? Nov. 19: Omaha, NE - Slowdown
? Nov. 20: Lincoln, NE - Vega
? Nov. 21: Kansas City, MO - the Riot Room
? Nov. 22: Chicago, IL - Beat Kitchent
? Nov. 23: Indianapolis, IN — Joyful Noise Recordings