There are select expressions in music that render me a sucker. These moments are unpredictably disparate, but always leave me affected. It could be a frontperson's painful wail or sardonic sneer, that perfect pop guitar lick or disco drum beat, or the emotional swell in a song that still brings the goosebumps after thousands of listens. One of those well used methods is the woozy, swirling slide guitar where it feels like the room is spinning. These sounds were perfected on the 1991 album Isn't Anything by My Bloody Valentine. Anytime a band invokes that feeling, I am well over halfway there.Baltimore duo Beach House has been employing dizzying guitar loops since their 2006 self titled release. However, their two earlier efforts had failed to wrestle me down like Teen Dream. Released at the beginning of the year, it seemed that Beach House brushed off the restraints of their earlier two albums and began to truly soar. With a new clarity in their production featuring upfront vocals courtesy of Victoria Legrand, Beach House had gone from that shy wallflower in the back of the class to the confident, blossoming, world-ready graduate.
The entirety of Teen Dream is a gauze-strewn slideshow of dreamy, from the hip snapshots capturing memories of those mundane moments that are easily missed. The settings that Beach House evoke are the sights of Americana: fields, dirt roads and yes, beaches. All the tracks are have their own mise-en-scene set by the instruments, be it a warm morning stroll, lazy afternoons in the shade or a long drive under twinkling stars. There is defined beauty, but always a second layer of longing and ache that is never too dark nor stormy. It is just the everyday cloud obscuring that perfect sunny day. Three of my favorite tracks are given below.
Buy the Beach House album Teen Dream here.
Beach House - Norway
Beach House - Lover Of Mine
Beach House - Take Care
No comments:
Post a Comment