“Fun, Sad, Creepy and Clever – Beautiful Small Machines is the retro-future”, that is what Beautiful Small Machines claim on their MySpace page. Indeed, fun, sad, creepy and clever are almost the exact words that I would like to use to summarize this 5-track EP by the New York based electropop duo.
 
The opening track “Counting Back to 1” is a synthesizer filled fun song that mimics 80’s pop music. It is a more catchy song than the title track, but in terms of lyrics “Robots in Love” is more interesting. In this album, the duo demonstrates that electropop songs are not only fun but can also be serious and sad. After the strange layers of sounds found in “Counting Back to 1”, listeners will be surprised with the ballad “So Long to U”. What a contrast. Bree Sharp’s sweet voice is a bit too cutesy, but it fits perfectly to their music. And as for creepy, the closing track “Servo Manual Chapter 1” is just too bizarre. Instead of sounding like a robot is singing, it sounds heavily processed and distorted. Also, this style is not really anything new, and groups like Kraftwerk did it in the 70’s already.
 
All in all, Beautiful Small Machines try to put a strong focus on the robot/machine theme: the band name, song names, lyrics, sounds, and even the album cover art. Although this EP is not as addictive as some other recent electropop groups’ albums (for example “We Started Nothing” by The Ting Tings), it gives a good introduction of the duo to those who enjoy electropop and synthpop music. If you are interested, visit their MySpace page where all the songs are available for listening. They definitely have talent to make more challenging and unique music, and hopefully I will hear it in a full-length album.