Beach House - ZebraAlbum: Teen Dream [2010]
despite its summery name, beach house creates music that is dark, dreamy, and alluringly hypnotic. baltimore residents alex scally and victoria legrand formed the duo in 2005, with legrand's hushed, nico-like vocals and scally's delicate instrumentation paving the way for their first batch of songs. within a year, beach house had charmed indie music enthusiasts across the blogosphere with its languid songcraft, and the eerie warmth of "apple orchard" landed on pitchfork's infinite mixtape MP3 series in august 2006. the band released two albums, notably 2008's "devotion", before graduating to sub pop and releasing "teen dream" in early 2010. the slightly squalid sound quality of their first albums had a unique charm, as if the band had to record those albums not just on the cheap, but in secret. on "teen dream", however, the hugeness previously implied in legrand's lyrics and luscious vocals is made real. the duo's mix of retro electronics and chiming guitars are still as dreamlike and distinctive as ever and the songwriting is also more focused. just like the album's title, these songs are wry and wise enough to know better about idealizing love, but romantic enough to still believe in it. “zebra” is quite a swooner, and is perhaps their most beautiful piece of work.
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