New Beach House - "Gila"

Beach House's autumnal, Baltimore dream-pop wooed and wowed at CMJ '06, delivering a spellbinding set at Cake Shop that landed in our top five for the year, setting the stage for this year's small-scale victory lap -- performing festivals and tinier rooms and keeping the BPM on that low-grade drum machine at a very, slow, clip.

So, follow-up time. As engrossing as Beach House could be, Victoria and Alex weren't pushing far beyond the Mazzy, the shooting-star slide guitars, the woozily reverbed House halls. "Gila" comes as the first bow from Devotion, the band's forthcoming, second outing, picking up right where they left off -- "Saltwater"/"Tokyo Witch" drum machine click-off, nocturnal organ swoons, Victoria's distant intoning. But "Gila" builds, and it's not just rehashed hash-pipes, here; where Beach House was willfully scraggly, now it's the same affecting sound but richer, thanks mostly to a slow wall of Legrand harmonies. Nice stuff.

Beach House - "Gila" (MP3)

Devotion is out 2/26/08 on Carpark.

[Pic from Pitchfork Music Festival 2007]

Posted at 2:13 PM in MP3
Tags: Beach House

9 Comments

almost kind of afraid to listen because i like listening to albums as AMAZING as theirs in one sitting, but...

i will say that theres nothing im anticipating more from 2008 as these two have made some of the most effortlessly, dizzingly and spellbindingly beautiful music that ive heard from anyone right now.

so.
tempting.

Posted by: ben at 12/11/07 3:12 PM  | Reply
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i am insanely in love with their music. insanely. this is incredibly brilliant.

Posted by: boo at 12/11/07 4:57 PM  | Reply
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Feh. Give me Mazzy any day of the week.

Posted by: Cynic at 12/11/07 5:46 PM  | Reply
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oh cynic what would we do without you?

I'll take Beach House over Mazzy any day, better songs.

Posted by: ppp at 12/11/07 6:45 PM  | Reply
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heard the new album, it's just as good if not better than their debut.

Posted by: Shawn at 12/11/07 9:22 PM  | Reply
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Haven't heard it. Mazzy Star are better.

Posted by: bp at 12/12/07 1:47 PM  | Reply
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I saw them open for the clientele at a small venue a while back and liked them, but this song blew my mind. I downloaded the whole album, I'm going to smoke and fully enjoy it as soon as I get off of work.

Posted by: Tyler at 12/12/07 3:13 PM  | Reply
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Mazzy Star, yeah she's so good she forgot to release any music for almost 12 years.

Posted by: Tyler at 12/12/07 3:17 PM  | Reply
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Well, that was pretty, of course. So... Beach House. Pretty.

Posted by: amelia at 12/13/07 8:48 PM  | Reply
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