Stereogum Home
December 11, 2007

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.

Beach House at Pitchfork Music Festival 2007
[Pic from Pitchfork Music Festival 2007]

Posted at 2:13 PM in
Tags:




-->

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
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

i am insanely in love with their music. insanely. this is incredibly brilliant.

Posted by: boo at 12/11/07 4:57 PM | Reply
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

Feh. Give me Mazzy any day of the week.

Posted by: Cynic at 12/11/07 5:46 PM | Reply
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

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
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

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
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

Haven't heard it. Mazzy Star are better.

Posted by: bp at 12/12/07 1:47 PM | Reply
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

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
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

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
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

Well, that was pretty, of course. So... Beach House. Pretty.

Posted by: amelia at 12/13/07 8:48 PM | Reply
Score = 0 Vote up Vote down

Leave a comment


 

The 'Gum Drop

Get our newsletter. MP3s and giveaways weekly.

Search




Sort by:date relevance

Information

  • Contact:
  • About
  • Press
  • Advertising
  • Stereogum RSS Stereogum RSS XML Icon
  • MP3-Only RSS Stereogum RSS XML Icon

Staff

Founder/Editor-In-Chief
Scott Lapatine
Executive Editor
Amrit Singh
Senior Writer
Brandon Stosuy
Columnist
Jon McMillan
Technology & Operations
Jim Jazwiecki
Angela Williams

The Cool Kids

All Stereogum Posts

Band to Watch logo

Band To Watch: Fredrik

Earlier this year we shined a light Swedish pop outfit the LK and their electro lovely, wintry gem "Stop Being Perfect." Had we known the band had a side project sooner, we probably would have written sooner. Instead, we came...

MORE »

Quit Your Day Job logo

Quit Your Day Job: Megafaun

Raleigh-via-Eau Clair BTW Megafaun debuted impressively earlier this year with Bury The Square. The trio nip-and-tuck experimental tendencies (tape splicing, white noise colliding with banjo, junkyard-laced spring reverb, screeching feedback at the tail end of a quiet back porch lament)...

MORE »

Premature Evaluation logo

Premature Evaluation: of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

Skeletal Lamping is anything but skeletal. When we took a close listen to album closer "Id Engager" we mentioned it wasn't the strangest, most ambitious, or best tune on of Montreal's new one, but after absorbing the other 14 tracks,...

MORE »

Video Hangover logo

Video Hangover: Marcy Playground - "Saint Joe On The Schoolbus"

Every week, we dig in the archives for videos that we find noteworthy, memorable, or just unbelievably stupid. And then, Jon McMillan breaks 'em down for you. This week: Marcy Playground blows their one chance at video immortality.

MORE »

Oldstand logo

OldStand: Rolling Stone, September 13, 1984

Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like. Lots of Huey Lewis (and the News) news lately, so let's go back...

MORE »

The Outsiders logo

The Outsiders: Vol. 17: Bird Show, Hair Police, Hush Arbors

Not all of Stereogum's favorite sounds conform to what folks expect us to cover. In this space, resident Bananafish fetishist Brandon Stosuy focuses on bands, albums, singles, and villages in Sweden that may otherwise pass by unnoticed. This installment's virtual...

MORE »

The 'Gum Drop logo

Horse Feathers - "Father"

Portland songwriter Justin Ringle's evocative vocal twang and sharp lyricism are at the center of Horse Feathers' bedroom Americana. The band's second album House With No Home, which follows 2006's Words Are Dead, finds Ringle's vision fleshed out by multi-instrumentalist/composer...

MORE »