album-a-day: “teen dream”

Since it broke one hundred degrees yesterday, I spent most of the day sitting in an air-conditioned coffee shop trying to write about stem cells, half-watching Grey Gardens, and listening to Beach House.

Beach House is from Baltimore and, in a word, “dreamy”. The members are both heavy-lidded and unkempt, possibly leading you to question whether they have just woken up. The music, to me, is the sort of comforting white noise that you would encounter if you lived with someone else: hearts beating, pets breathing, air circulating. While I’ve always found it pleasant, I’ve never really felt strongly about it.

(You love how totally awkward that first still is. Who makes that kind of decision?)

I like the way this song feels once I get there, but it’s hard for me to decide that that’s really where I want to go. Even more so than Pela, the lyrics are rapidly approaching inconsequential. Upon investigation, they seem trite; in the context of their accompaniment, they’re incredibly moving. The interplay of Victoria Legrand’s understated vocals and the pulse of whatever textures are beneath it brings an understated moodiness to every song, rendering even the most prosaic statements…evocative.

Evocative in a sullen way. In a way that guarantees that I’m not only not mad when she croons “there’s something wrong with our hearts”, but actually kind of weirdly in agreement. Like…”oh, yeah, I totally get this, there’s something not medically defective, but defective nonetheless, about my heart, too! How insightful! I’m going to listen to this album again!”

I am going to be seeing Beach House when they open for Vampire Weekend this fall, so we’ll see if that strangely hypnotic power can take hold in a live setting.

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