SOUND CHECK L.A. DUO BITTER:SWEET SAVORING THE TASTE OF SUCCESS.

Byline: Emmanuelle Soichet Staff Writer

On stage, Shana Halligan is a siren. Dressed in a flowing V-neck scarlet gown, her flaming curls wrap her shoulders and provocative lyrics honey from her mouth. When the vocalist of the L.A.-based duo, Bitter:Sweet, reaches the chorus of the sultry single "Dirty Laundry" during a show at Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, it's enough to make the club's entire male population take a long sip of their drinks and swallow hard as she intones: "What's the fun in playing it safe / I think I'd rather misbehave."

"I'm a hot diva," Halligan jokes in the green room before the show, while a friend doubling as her stylist snaps auburn extensions into her hair. Not quite diva yet.

But, then, "The Mating Game," Bitter:Sweet's debut album, just came out Tuesday.

If Kanye West has declared a megalomaniacal, top-down jihad on mediocre pop music (with Will.I.am and John Legend as cohorts), Bitter:Sweet is slowly hatching its own electronica-fused pop revolution in the bedroom. The album's 11 loungy tracks combine jazzy vocals with wah-wah guitar splashes, playful brass arrangements, harp solos and unmistakable undertones of Serge Gainsbourg.

It's music that crawls. Bitter:Sweet is all about pleasure, smoothness, being naughty, and without pretension, mixing the sounds of Zero 7 and Portishead. As Halligan says, "We just made something we wanted to listen to."

So far, all the elements are falling into place: a show at House of Blues; generous airplay of "The Mating Game" single on Santa Monica's KCRW, including a live performance on the station's morning show; a remix of the title track by Dutch DJs Kraak & Smaak that's gained a bit of traction, and a crop of positive reviews.

Bitter:Sweet began in November 2004 with an anonymous ad posted on Craigslist. "It just said, 'Electronic band seeks singer,' " Halligan recalls. ("Must be young and hot," the duo's other half, Kiran Shahani, butts in.) The "band" was Shahani, one of the founders and producers of trip-hop ensemble Supreme Beings of Leisure.

That was good enough for Halligan, who had burned out from commercial work and just returned after "checking out" of the L.A. music scene. She had traveled and lived in Italy for a year with her father, Dick Halligan, of Blood, Sweat and Tears.

"I don't know why I answered the ad," she says, surveying the green room as the band's back-up musicians drift in and out. "At that point, I felt ready to give in. I almost felt like I didn't want to sing or write anymore. I had lost something, I wasn't finding the right inspiration and was asking myself why I was still doing this .... "

" ... Like you lost your soul?" Shahani asks, with a wink to his own rocky few years after Supreme Beings split.

Halligan: "It did! Honestly. And I didn't realize how dead I was. People were coming in from all different angles, telling me what I was supposed to do, how my music should sound. It was no longer fun."

Now it's the duo that's calling the shots, with guidance from executive producer Bruno Guez of Quango Music Group, the L.A. record label that reps Zero 7, Gecko Turner, and Kruder & Dorfmeister in the states.

Off stage, Shahani and Halligan share a tangible creative synergy, finishing each other's sentences and sniping at each other in tart banter. "We rarely have a disagreement with music," Halligan says. Shahani picks right up: "It's amazing how in tune we are. We both get excited when we hear the same sounds."

Before a crowd or even on the record, though, it's the Shana show.

Completely transformed, the giggle-prone Southern California girl seems to melt into her love-addicted lyrics, sewn together with Shahani's electric guitar washes and seven-piece band.

"You need more than I'll ever give / I can't lie to you / I love you, my angel / Everything I do I do it for you / I do it all for you," she whispers, clutching the mic at the Hotel Cafe show and nibbling at every word before letting it go.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) L.A. BANDS MAKING A SCENE

DENGUE FEVER, BITTER:SWEET TURN UP THE VOLUME

(2) Bitter:Sweet