Atlanta Soundtrack: New cuts from Bathe Alone and Bktherula, plus classic Brick

Bathe Alone: “Decades & Dreams”

Betty White, who died just shy of her 100th birthday on the final day of 2021, once said of aging: “The best thing about being in your 90s is you’re spoiled rotten. Everybody spoils you like mad, and they treat you with such respect because you’re old. Little do they know, you haven’t changed.” That philosophy, and White’s impish spirit, pervades this loving homage to aging and friendship — and girls of the Golden variety — filmed on scenic Lake Allatoona by dream-pop singer and multi-instrumentalist (drums, guitar, bass) Bailey Crone, aka Bathe Alone.

The video shows Bailey and her lifelong chum, played by real-life pal Jasmine André-Brown, caked with full-on aging makeup and bad wigs, whooping it up on the open water and toasting to turning 92. Meanwhile, soft-focus flashbacks of their inverse birthday, 29, weave in some bittersweet nostalgia. The video ends with a note to “Call your grandma!”

Crone told Variance Magazine that she was inspired by some recently discovered photos of her great-grandmothers on a boat excursion, although in the actual images, the two elder women looked pretty glum. “In real life, they were in-laws and probably ready to go home by the looks of it,” she said.

The new single landed with a splash on March 4, ahead of Bathe Alone’s eagerly anticipated sophomore album, Fall with the Lights Down, produced by Damon Moon (who has also worked with Atlanta bands Lunar Vacation and Dinner Time) and set to debut this summer.

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Bktherula: “Coupe (Visualizer)”

“Sometimes, Atlanta’s Bktherula cuts raging headbangers big and polished enough for her city’s mainstream machine. Other times, the 19-year-old’s songs are melodic and ethereal, with a demo-like feel that has more in common with the local underground scene.” That’s how Pitchfork described Bktherula’s most recent album, 2021’s Love Black. Blissfully, this piece falls into that latter category, with its diaphanous delivery and psychedelic look.

A maven of our city’s underground scene, “BK,” born Brooklyn Rodriguez, is a wunderkind. She began recording songs in grade school, then quickly graduated to mixing songs and uploading them to Soundcloud by the time she was in middle school. Soon after, she was accruing millions of plays on Spotify and other streaming platforms. (Incidentally, her father was a rapper with the hip-hop group Planet X.)

Still in her teens in 2020, she released the independent debut, Love Santana, followed by the mixtape Nirvana — and has just continued to gather steam with an intriguing and versatile mix of alternative hip-hop, emo and punk. A fan of spiritual retreats and Tame Impala, BK told Office Magazine of her hometown: “Atlanta is the best place to ever exist.”

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Brick: “Dazz”

You know the adage: arrive for the funky sax, stay for the jazz flute. Atlanta funk and jazz quintet Brick might as well have crafted their mega-hit “Dazz” (a term coined from the fusion of disco and jazz) in an earworm lab. Our vintage track of the week comes in strong and just . . . GOES AND GOES. Straight off the band’s debut album Good High, the groovy tune quickly climbed the charts in 1976 to No. 1 in R&B and No. 3 in pop. As the lyrics go: “Music makes your body move. Well, all right.” And move, we must.

Other hits followed, among them: “Dusic” and “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Nobody” in 1977 and “Sweat (Til You Get Wet)” in 1981. The group got so big that it headlined an Atlanta show with B.B. King and was invited by President Jimmy Carter to play at the White House.

“Dazz,” which practically has the instructions “sample me” written all over it, gained a second life when it was used on Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline,” his 1991 “diss track” response to NWA, which he had left two years earlier.

Brick featured a collective of talented musicians, who met while playing clubs across the A. The original lineup included Donald Nevins, Ray Ransom, Eddie Irons, Regi Hargis and Jimmy “Lord” Brown, who provided vocals, flute, saxophone, trumpet and trombone. Its surviving members have continued to play together for more than four decades.

Brown’s son, Patrick “Sleepy” Brown, also kept the family legacy going. Taking after his dad by mastering a whole host of instruments — particularly synth and electric piano, Sleepy Brown teamed up with Rico Wade and Ray Murray to form the trio Organized Noize. The group would meet up in Wade’s mom’s place, dubbed “the Dungeon.” Which, yes, led to the Dungeon Family, including OutKast and Goodie Mob.

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Alexis Hauk has written and edited for numerous newspapers, alt-weeklies, trade publications and national magazines including Time, the Atlantic, Mental Floss, Uproxx and Washingtonian magazine. Having grown up in Decatur, Alexis returned to Atlanta in 2018 after a decade living in Boston, Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles. By day, she works in health communications. By night, she enjoys covering the arts and being Batman.