School Dance
School Dance is a dream pop/dark wave duo from Philadelphia. Allison Lorenzen (vocals/keys/synths) and Sam Tremble (drums/vibraphone) have a story that you’ve heard before. They met in an art store in Philly on the date of the predicted Mayan apocalypse — December 21, 2012. Although the press releases don’t specifically say so, I get the impression that they’re a couple. They’ve released three digital singles and are about to release a self-titled album some time this year. Along the way, they’ve toured North America once, and they’re currently on tour with the one-man synth pop outfit Memory Tapes.
I don’t know anything else about this band, but I got something in the mailbag and immediately fell in love with this song. The song and the band remind me a lot of the LA ambient electronic/dream pop duo Houses, whose most recent album A Quiet Darkness was my 16th favourite album of 2013. That band played at Hopscotch in 2013, and their set was marked by delays and technical problems, but it was amazing. And I missed Waxahatchee because of it. I loved that band and the fact that this reminds me of that is a very good thing.
Today’s song was just released digitally last week, but it’s my understanding that they wrote it a few years ago, just after they met and started working together. Either way, I love it. This is that song.
“Field” by School Dance
This is a beautiful song that has a lot of bits that hit my soft spots. The vibraphone. The lush, beautiful, layered female vocals. The icy/hot synths. The darkness of it. Yes. It’s sad, but it’s also very lovely. When a band can pull that off while adding those other elements, it’s a no-brainer for me.
I don’t know when the album will be out, but I’ll be looking forward to it very much. In the meantime, you can download the single by naming your price at Bandcamp here.
Also, here’s the somewhat disturbing video for the song:
this is that song 
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