Beach House, the Baltimore duo of guitarist Alex Scally and vocalist/keyboardist Victoria Legrand, coined a new brand of languid and decadent slo-core on
the brief album Beach House (Car Park, 2006), only vaguely reminiscent
of famous predecessors
(Mazzy Star, Yo La Tengo).
A sense of nostalgy exhales from Saltwater's waltzing beat and
old-fashioned keyboards.
Another waltzing ditty, Auburn and Ivory,
shares a bit of Nico's stately melancholy.
Middle-eastern arrangements decorate the poppy melody of Tokyo Witch,
The country-ish ballad Apple Orchard straddles into psychedelic territory
thanks to a revolving keyboard drone and a dreamy guitar solo.
Legrand gets as close as soul music as she can in Master of None,
accompanied by a quasi-liturgical organ.
Unfortunately the second half of the collection is vastly inferior
(despite the sinister chant and electronic noises of The House On The Hill and the lengthy spaced-out litany of Heart and Lungs),
a sign that this should only have been an EP.
Harpsichord and organ tower among the humble arrangements.
The gentle, low-key, hazy atmosphere of the debut turns more corporeal on
Devotion (Carpark, 2008).
The gems of the albums are two songs that practice the same strategy:
the harpsichord-driven carillon of Wedding Bell, drenched in feathery
Sixties romanticism;
and the majestic Heart of Chambers, also tied to a tender music-box
refrain (organ and guitar instead of harpsichord) and lifted by a Sixties-sounding bridge.
The breathy and languid D.A.R.L.I.N.G. is just a bit less effective,
despite an infectious organ progression.
The neoclassical piano-based aria of You Came to Me and
the stately and hypnotic ballad Gila (a bit too influenced by the Cocteau Twins)
mine a murkier territory.
Their counterpart are the dreamy, cosmically dilated lullabies
Turtle Island and All the Years.
The synth-pop of Astronaut Legrand is what they do worst.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Tobia D’Onofrio)
Beach House, il duo di Baltimora del chitarrista Alex Scally e della cantante e tastierista Victoria Legrand, ha coniato un nuovo tipo di slow-core languido e decadente, nel breve album Beach House (Car Park, 2006), solo in parte reminiscente di famosi predecessori (Mazzy Star, Yo La Tengo). Muovendosi con leggerezza Auburn and Ivory, Tokyo Witch, Saltwater, Apple Orchard, Master Of None cavalcano il confine fra sorriso estatico e racconto noir. L’arpicordo e l’organo torreggiano sui modesti arrangiamenti.
La dolce atmosfera del debutto, nebbiosa e dimessa, diventa più corporea su Devotion (Car Park, 2008), con creazioni come Gila, Wedding Bell e Heart Of Chambers che accennano un mondo meno etereo.
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