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Lovely Music from Lovely People

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Posts Tagged ‘Beach House’

Record Store Day La la la

Posted by George on April 18th, 2010

Some metal band playing at Reckless Records. Note the 7-Eleven across the street where I got a Slurpee.

Yesterday was Record Store Day and in honor of it I biked to Reckless Records, a cool record shop in the loop, to check out the scene. I was surprised to see a live metal band playing in the tiny store. It was great fun but I didn’t end up buying anything. Anyway, two new Record Store Day releases that stuck out to me as prominent were a 12″ from Beach House and a new new new new song from Blur! Wow, how many years has it been? Anyway, here’s what I have to say about the releases: the Blur song is excellent and it almost seems like a part of a bigger picture and I would die to get a Blur release this year. Graham Coxon’s guitar throughout, and especially at the end, reminds me of why I care.

:)

The Beach House track, meh… It sounds like a Teen Dream outtake, which it probably is but if you haven’t had enough Beach House then go for it but I wouldn’t have spent money on the footlong (12″ release) if had been able to find it in any of the record stores I went to yesterday. I went to two by the way. The second one was this cute store closer to campus that I walked into on my way to dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs. Dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs was great though. I had a “Bronco Burger” with fries and slaw for three dollars. What a steal!

Beach House – The Arrangementbysubpop

Oh, by the way, download the Blur song here and you can listen to a high quality version on our player.

Winter Madness, SAD, The Blues and Music as Therapy

Posted by Larissa on January 31st, 2010

I was in a bad mood a couple nights ago and texted a few people to have them suggest a cure. My favorite response came from Paloma. Half of her texts made me feel worse; for example, she texted something about how every hour you spend in front of the television increases your risk of dying by something like 10 percent. Doubtful, maybe, but since I had just watched HP6 the night before, this assertion was really no help. But the effects of such texts were completely washed by others revealing her idiosyncrasies, ‘I also watched the Matrix every night it’s been on in the last 2 weeks. Now vying w Howl for my most-watched movie of all time.’ Only for Paloma and maybe my youngest brother, Alexander, would Howl’s Moving Castle, be their most-watched movie of all time. Somewhere between learning about polar bears being left-handed and reading Salinger’s alternate obituary in The Onion, I started to feel better.

Anyway, here is my stab at a cure for the winter blues. This is also a response to Paloma’s request for some ‘this-is-no-time-for-lethargy music.’ I am pretty sure I’m not the only one feeling this slump. The most recent episode of 30 Rock was titled ‘Winter Madness’; in other words, Tina Fey’s take on Seasonal Affective Disorder. Apparently February is the last month during which individuals in the Northern Hemisphere will usually experience symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder – so I learned when writing two papers on SAD last semester.

Here are some excellent tunes so cheer up. This is especially for the guy at work who said he’d gone through our playlist twice already and needed more. This is also for the girl who I sent one of these tracks to – you told me that you ’LOOVED!’ it. I promise, you’ll feel the same way about the rest of these.

photo by Ravi Bhalla

photo by Ravi Bhalla

PLAY TRACKS

‘The Sun’  Portugal. The Man

‘Dog Days are Over’  Florence + The Machine

‘O.N.E’  Yeasayer

‘Take Care’  Beach House


Edward Sharpe, Beach House and to Whom it May Concern at Pitchfork

Posted by Larissa on January 27th, 2010

Aphera’s one-month anniversary fell on a good week; here in Baltimore we are celebrating restaurant week (mmm) and the release of Beach House’s new highly rated album, Teen Dream (represent!). The thing is, I do not say ‘highly rated’ lightly. Pitchfork gave Beach House a coveted 9 rating. Not that I think this album isn’t good, it’s just I can’t reconcile the discrepancy between Beach House = 9 while just a few days ago, my other band of the moment, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, was tanked at a 4.1

edward sharpe magnetic zeros_400x400.shkl-thumb-300x300-38434

From Below

And worse yet, the description as to why the Magnetic Zeros deserved such a low score had something to do with the fact that they weren’t as good as the ‘real thing.’ I guess kind of like store brand cola is never as good as real Coca-Cola? Except the reviewer, Paul Thompson, used ‘Fruitopia’ as the object in the analogy. And since Fruitopia was introduced in 1994 when I was age 6 – I have no idea what it is. So when Thompson begins his article with ‘Remember Fruitopia?’ My answer is, no, actually I don’t.  Therefore, I really can’t use your damn analogy to help me better understand why you tanked the Magnetic Zeros at 4.1 points.

So I scanned the rest of his article for some substance. Honest to god, the next best thing I found was, ‘But the admirably far-reaching results nevertheless come up short.’ Thompson, I’m genuinely interested in why the Magnetic Zeros come up short enough to be tanked at a 4.1 – your ridiculously long, adjective heavy, analogy reeking article was not even close to being sufficient enough to provide the answer and Beach House’s 9 rating did not help explain the situation either.

Teen_Dream-Beach_House_480

Teen Dream (the cover is there, look at your screen from an angle to see it)

My personal opinion – Beach House’s Teen Dream is a smooth, coherent album. It begins beautifully with what sounds like a theme and expands elegantly in the middle to what resembles a development with songs like ‘Love of Mine’. I guess I would call it an album in sonata form (this is a stretch). But then at the end it comes to a nice recap just like the end of a classical piece. This natural inverted U shape indicating a climax in the middle and then a rest at the end makes the album a pleasant listen. Additionally, Victoria Legrand’s voice is award winning, sophisticated and ripe. Seriously, more little white people need to sound like big black women. Yet, even with all this, I feel like the 9 score should be reserved for something groundbreaking and this album, as concise as it is, is not groundbreaking. In fact, it kind of reminds me of the 80s and what doesn’t these days?!

Anyway – I feel like Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, in all honesty, may not have displayed as much quality as Beach House did. So I’m not implying that they deserve a high score – but a 4.1? Listen to a song like ’40 Day Dream’. It’s unique and well crafted. A lot of complaints came from reviewers who said that the Magnetic Zeros just didn’t match up to the hippie stuff that came out of the 60s. One reviewer said that a lot of bands are doing what the Zeros do better these days. But he failed to pinpoint which ones. So, since I haven’t been an avid listener of that hippie stuff from either back in the day or from today, the Magnetic Zeros sound fresh to me and, of course, kind of sarcastic at times with songs like ‘Home.’ Don’t make the mistake of confusing their sarcasm for artificiality. Because – I think if you don’t take these guys too seriously, (and why would you?) you realize they actually produced an enjoyable and quality album.