Tanlines Thursday, July 9

Tanlines drummer Jesse Cohen bursts through the door with a giant burlap bag labeled "cocaine" and a six-pack of beer. It's the first in a series of shenanigans involving Cohen and singer-guitarist Eric Emm in the duo's music video for the song "Palace." Nose candy in the club is followed by a fivesome that Cohen watches from the back of the bedroom, nodding proudly while eating Chinese food. A toaster gets dropped into a bathtub, and Cohen ultimately ends up sleeping with the girl who left Emm (played by Girls' Alex Karpovsky) in the beginning of the video.

"It was one of the best parts of this whole thing," Cohen says about making the video, "this whole thing" being Tanlines' sophomore album, Highlights. Though the band's upbeat, carefully crafted dance pop is meant to be taken seriously, comedy is a major part of its multimedia presence. Aside from music videos, the layout of Tanlines' website is an incredibly detailed Netflix knockoff, while the group's official Twitter account alternates between Cohen's witty jokes and administrative band information. "It's a big part of our relationship with each other and who we are as individuals," Cohen says. "It's just about getting across who we are, what we are interested in, and letting people in."

Cohen is speaking by phone on his way to Pittsburgh for the first show of the Highlights tour. It seems symbolic that Tanlines is starting its tour there: It's where Emm's basement studio is located, the scene of a technical disaster that turned out to be formative in the making of the album. "When we first started writing in Pittsburgh, our computer blew up and we had to start sort of writing songs just from guitar and drums," Cohen says. Although they weren't planning to lose what is normally their main songwriting tool, being forced to use more live drums aided their plan to write songs with the live show in mind. It was a major move from the two guys behind a computer of the band's debut, Mixed Emotions, which they initially hadn't planned to bring onstage until the reaction at a few trial shows convinced them otherwise.

As a result, Highlights sounds vast and full, partly from the space provided by more traditional instrumentation that blends with idiosyncratic, lighthearted synth hooks, and partly from Emm's theatrical vocals, which were recorded as he belted them from the balcony of a century-old Brooklyn church. Because of the expansive sound on Highlights, Tanlines' usual two-man lineup will expand to a four-piece.

Adaptation seems to be an integral part of Tanlines. Mixed Emotions wasn't completed without incident, either: Cohen and Emm were evicted from their Brooklyn studio halfway through recording. Maybe the group is doomed to face a calamity each time it makes a record. "I guess you could say it's never simple," Cohen says. "It's never what you plan for it to be, but neither is life." Whatever comes along, at least the bandmates will have their sense of humor to help them along. And maybe some cocaine…probably not, though. SHANNON GORMLEY.

SEE IT: Tanlines plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Mas Ysa, on Thursday, July 9. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

WWeek 2015