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November 2, 2006

Stereogum Does CMJ: Beach House @ Cake Shop

The Cake Shop serves coffee, tea, and an assortment of alcoholic beverages, but no Kool Aid. And yet, a post-show sidewalk eavesdropper would've been right to ask if we'd all just drank a gallon of the sugary goodness, 'cause it was nothing but raves, toasts, and superlatives for this dreamy Baltimore duo. We'd taken a pass through their self-titled debut a few months back and enjoyed, but weren't expecting the hazed, autumnal pop purveyed in spades at last night's show to sweep us into silly, gooey puddles of appreciation.

Beach House - "Saltwater" (MP3)
Beach House - "Apple Orchard" (MP3)


And this was a perfect match of band to venue; in every way, Cake Shop is where Beach House belonged. The naturally occurring yellows and browns in the room's walls and artwork match the color scheme conjured by Beach House's cover art, and the golden hue of the stringed lights gave a narcotic glow that fit the lush and dopey feel of the band's surreal keyboard tones and arpeggios; their simple, plodding rhythm-sample triggers; and the reverb-drenched guitars and vox. It's one mood writing, for sure -- but it's a mood well suited to dreamers, lovers, and druggies of all shapes and sizes. And if you're a dreaming drug-lover, then fuck, buy this record ASAP; this is the soundtrack to your life, dude.

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13 Comments

**YAWN**

Posted by: Patrik at 11/02/06 2:01 PM | Reply
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yaaawn.

Posted by: rea at 11/02/06 5:11 PM | Reply
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whatever to the above commentors, beach house is awesome, we saw them, you didn't so yawn away. you'll be yawning all the way to insound to buy their cd and if you don't, oh well. maybe they'll start writing something you can compare to the cold war kids so you will have something to do instead of shopping at american apparel and playing hipster bingo. yeesh.

Posted by: Loudersoft at 11/03/06 5:35 AM | Reply
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sorry but this is really boring sleepy vocal mazzy star ripoff shite - the shoe or sleepgaze wave is long over, guess some hipster asses never left their beds

Posted by: jessemessy at 11/03/06 10:10 AM | Reply
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one of the best records of the year, to me
if youre yawning, youre not giving it even a 2nd or third listen
which it does require.
we've gotten so used to hearing clicks and bleeps and everything sonically changing with indie music that i think itd be easy to pass this album over as being mediocre. but its songwriting is great. so is its presentation with production. i love it very very much.

it has a lot more depth than a lot of other hot records right now. and it has it in all the right places.

beautifulll

Posted by: ben at 11/03/06 11:37 AM | Reply
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The soundtrack to my life better have some fucking Bowie on it.

Posted by: Jack at 11/03/06 12:17 PM | Reply
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the dreamy beach house is beautiful winter music :)

Posted by: musicisart at 11/09/06 11:57 AM | Reply
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perfect sadness, clearest sound, and the classic song structure...

this LP is full of the moments that i've missed in YMG's techniques, the lightness and tranparency i've missed in The creature and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins... could go further... not a shock to me but the album that's gonna stuck in my ipod for a while, and will be in massive rotary, for sure.
havent seen them live but can imagine guys are bitting tears off.

Posted by: onki at 11/15/06 6:24 PM | Reply
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boring like good sex is boring. This music is like good, make that really good, sex. Sex you can pass out drunk to.

Posted by: Steven at 11/15/06 11:37 PM | Reply
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perfect sadness, clearest sound, and the classic song structure...

this LP is full of the moments that i've missed in YMG's techniques, the lightness and tranparency i've missed in The creature and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins... could go further... not a shock to me but the album that's gonna stuck in my ipod for a while, and will be in massive rotary, for sure.
havent seen them live but can imagine guys are bitting tears off.

Posted by: onki at 11/16/06 5:00 AM | Reply
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"yawn," eh? how creative. must be the lack of hipster irony.

i saw them here in seattle recently at some irish pub of all places, and they were great. nice folks, too.

Posted by: fedge at 11/22/06 3:34 PM | Reply
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"yawn," eh? how creative. must be the lack of hipster irony.

i saw them here in seattle recently at some irish pub of all places, and they were great. nice folks, too.

Posted by: fedge at 11/22/06 3:40 PM | Reply
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I guess I saw more of this at
http://megauploadfiles.com/

Posted by: vik at 04/26/08 12:18 AM | Reply
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