Review: 2022's stunning album Once Twice Melody was a fine example of Beach House doing what they do best - living bang up to that name, with intimate-but epic instrumentation falling somewhere between surf-y jangle and grand shoegaze. 'Become' is definitely on a similar tip, and as such feels much like an extension of the long form.
Dig a little deeper, though, and scratches begin to show. While the full-length record represented Beach House reaching for the stars, or at least the moon, and stepping into the role of festival headliners, here the sense of pure confidence and occasion is less pronounced. That may not be a bad thing, mind, because while Once came across like a finished article, refined and prepared, things here seem somehow rawer, as though we're sitting in on a session as oppose to getting the signed off product.
B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition
American Daughter (4:08)
Devil's Pool (3:55)
Holiday House (5:03)
Black Magic (4:54)
Become (5:44)
Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***
2022's stunning album Once Twice Melody was a fine example of Beach House doing what they do best - living bang up to that name, with intimate-but epic instrumentation falling somewhere between surf-y jangle and grand shoegaze. 'Become' is definitely on a similar tip, and as such feels much like an extension of the long form.
Dig a little deeper, though, and scratches begin to show. While the full-length record represented Beach House reaching for the stars, or at least the moon, and stepping into the role of festival headliners, here the sense of pure confidence and occasion is less pronounced. That may not be a bad thing, mind, because while Once came across like a finished article, refined and prepared, things here seem somehow rawer, as though we're sitting in on a session as oppose to getting the signed off product.
Review: Given the amount of energy he's put into his "Tim's Twitter Party" online listening events this year, it's perhaps surprising that Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess has found time to record new music. Ascent of the Ascended, his new EP, follows on from May's well-received solo album, I Love The New Sky, and lands on orange translucent vinyl. Fans will find plenty to cheer, including two songs recorded with, and produced by, Charles Heywood: the effervescent title track and 'Yours To Be', a deliciously jangling, life-affirming affair built around multi-tracked acoustic guitars, soft-touch percussion and lilting horn lines. The set's four other tracks, including a rather lovely new version of Charlatans classic 'The Only One I Know', were recorded "in session" during a Paste Magazine event in New York.
Review: Genuine honesty is pretty rare in music today - even when artists claim to bare their soul it's often calculated. For Brian Christinzio, AKA BC Camplight, though, nothing could be further from the truth. His work is aurally exploratory and adventurous, and he makes no secret of real feelings, even if those feelings risk making the audience feel a little uncomfortable. Take the intro to 'Ghosthunting' here - the man in question delivers a pseudo-standup route discussing his mental health issues. It makes how enjoyable the track is, and the album overall, somewhat jarring. This is clearly a work of some personal struggle. Nevertheless, enjoy we must as it's pretty near perfect. Beautiful electronica, dark synth wave stuff, and commanding, No.1-friendly pop with real bite. Overlook at your peril.
Review: Genuine honesty is pretty rare in music today - even when artists claim to bare their soul it's often calculated. For Brian Christinzio, AKA BC Camplight, though, nothing could be further from the truth. His work is aurally exploratory and adventurous, and he makes no secret of real feelings, even if those feelings risk making the audience feel a little uncomfortable. Take the intro to 'Ghosthunting' here - the man in question delivers a pseudo-standup route discussing his mental health issues. It makes how enjoyable the track is, and the album overall, somewhat jarring. This is clearly a work of some personal struggle. Nevertheless, enjoy we must as it's pretty near perfect. Beautiful electronica, dark synth wave stuff, and commanding, No.1-friendly pop with real bite. Overlook at your peril.
Review: In the aftermath of the Brexit vote the question on many people's minds is 'what's going to happen'...well an answer for some, at least, was a new BC Camplight album, fittingly named, Deportation Blues. Recording in Liverpool's Whitewood studios, Brian Christinzio is said to have locked himself in a windowless studio and recorded all songs almost exclusively in the dark. With title track Deportation Blues its most illuminating result, the album overall is a more electrified opus, musically speaking, than his previous long players How To Die In The North and Blink Of A Nihilist. Featuring Luke Barton on guitars and synth, alongside guitarist Tom Rothery and multi-instrumentalist/ backing singer Ali Bell, BC Camplight lights it up again.
Review: In the aftermath of the Brexit vote the question on many people's minds is 'what's going to happen'...well an answer for some, at least, was a new BC Camplight album, fittingly named, Deportation Blues. Recording in Liverpool's Whitewood studios, Brian Christinzio is said to have locked himself in a windowless studio and recorded all songs almost exclusively in the dark. With title track Deportation Blues its most illuminating result, the album overall is a more electrified opus, musically speaking, than his previous long players How To Die In The North and Blink Of A Nihilist. Featuring Luke Barton on guitars and synth, alongside guitarist Tom Rothery and multi-instrumentalist/ backing singer Ali Bell, BC Camplight lights it up again.
Review: "A document created in the shadow of incredible darkness. One from which the creator hadn't planned on escaping and still doesn't. Hence the title of the album. It is the result of an illness that I've battled my whole life. It isn't something that the world has done to me. It's the world I live in, and it's no one's fault."
So says Brian Christinzio, AKA BC Camplight, of his sixth album. As ever, it's a musical masterpiece packing dense layers of instrumental experimentation and theses-worthy lyrical poignance. An artist who has never played by the musical rules, fans of strong juxtapositions will again be in there element, with a tracklist that spans grunge-y garage rock, twisted barroom journeyman stuff, theatrical guitar pop, and plenty more. But the sounds themselves are only one half the genius. When it comes to arrangements, things are as playful as they are innovative, keeping listeners guessing as to how structures will pan out.
Review: Here comes a special double vinyl box set edition of Beach House's latest album, Once Twice Melody, which was the first one the band themselves have ever produced in its entirety. It was recorded in three different locations - Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, United Studio in Los Angeles, and Apple Orchard Studios in Baltimore. The band used a real and full live string ensemble for the first time, too, and David Campbell took care of arrangements. It is a double album that features 18 songs presented in four chapters that take in many different sound and structures centred around acoustic guitar, some around drums, and some around electronics.
Review: A reissue of Beach House's fifth studio album 'Depression Cherry', without any extra fanfare - these dream pop dramatists don't need it. Originally released in 2015, the 2021 edition is a lightweight silver vinyl edition, housed in a deeper red velvet sleeve with a printed inner housing. There's no extra fluff on this one, either. It's simply the original 9 songs, which we are now reminded are enviable in their hazy, Christmas-jingly, shoegaze blur. It's no coincidence that this is the album that elavated Beach House to a new level of prominence and acclaim; their sound is fittingly uplifting and maximal, as Legrand and Scally's ghosted vocals whirl like a flying carpet or sonic geyser, come to propel us towards higher altitudes. Besides, it's a sign of a great 'ethereal' band to call an album of this beauty, grandeur and subtlety "aggressive". This is your chance to remember it.
Review: Bella Union gives you 'Devotion' the second album from the dreamy pop duo from Baltimore, Maryland, Beach House. Includes original songs as well as cover songs
like 'Some Things Last a Long Time', by Daniel Johnston.
Review: Long-time indie darlings and American dream pop duo Beach House barely ever put a foot wrong, and you won't find a misstep on this, their fifth album, either. Depression Cherry was co-produced by the band with Chris Coady and first came back in 2015. It was written over two years before that and saw the band return to a more simplistic sound with fewer instruments, tunes constructed around a main melody and live drums featuring less than in the past. This was in response to having enlarged their sound as the venues they played grew ever bigger, but dialing it back in was a good move if you ask us.
Review: It may be debatable whether B-sides still exist in the here and now, yet beneath the very slightly prosaic title of this compendium lurks the work of an outfit who - despite having essentially surfed along a very definitive wave of sun-dappled languour since their inception - are capable of delivering offcuts that are every bit the equal of most folks' hits. True, the Spinal Tap insult of 'the musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted' could be applied to Beach House, but when their catalogue over the ten years of their existence esentially consists of a variety of themes on opiated bliss, we're only too happy to embark on the ride.
Review: It may be debatable whether B-sides still exist in the here and now, yet beneath the very slightly prosaic title of this compendium lurks the work of an outfit who - despite having essentially surfed along a very definitive wave of sun-dappled languour since their inception - are capable of delivering offcuts that are every bit the equal of most folks' hits. True, the Spinal Tap insult of 'the musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted' could be applied to Beach House, but when their catalogue over the ten years of their existence esentially consists of a variety of themes on opiated bliss, we're only too happy to embark on the ride.
Review: It may be debatable whether B-sides still exist in the here and now, yet beneath the very slightly prosaic title of this compendium lurks the work of an outfit who - despite having essentially surfed along a very definitive wave of sun-dappled languour since their inception - are capable of delivering offcuts that are every bit the equal of most folks' hits. True, the Spinal Tap insult of 'the musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted' could be applied to Beach House, but when their catalogue over the ten years of their existence esentially consists of a variety of themes on opiated bliss, we're only too happy to embark on the ride.
Review: It may be debatable whether B-sides still exist in the here and now, yet beneath the very slightly prosaic title of this compendium lurks the work of an outfit who - despite having essentially surfed along a very definitive wave of sun-dappled languour since their inception - are capable of delivering offcuts that are every bit the equal of most folks' hits. True, the Spinal Tap insult of 'the musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted' could be applied to Beach House, but when their catalogue over the ten years of their existence esentially consists of a variety of themes on opiated bliss, we're only too happy to embark on the ride.
Review: Beach House's lates album, Once Twice Melody is the first one the band themselves have ever produced in its entirety. It was recorded in three different locations - Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, United Studio in Los Angeles, and Apple Orchard Studios in Baltimore. The band used a real and full live string ensemble for the first time, too, and David Campbell took care of arrangements. It is a double album that features 18 songs presented in four chapters that take in many different sound and structures centred around acoustic guitar, some around drums, and some around electronics.
Review: Beach House return with another inevitably washed out dream pop pipe-fantasy - and perhaps a magnum opus, being 18 tracks long - 'Once Twice Melody'. We can confirm the LP scales a more minimal and wondrous sound than their career-definer, 'Depression Cherry'. As ever, noir slow jams canopy an ever-ghostlier vocal palette on lead singles like 'Over And Over' and 'Superstar'. Even a live string ensemble was used in its recording. Stonkingly, it comes in various limited-edition formats. One, the "gold" edition, includes a gold and clear 2xLP record in a gold-embossed, hinged box. The "silver" edition is housed in a silver embossed black sleeve. Oh, and there's a cassette version too, for all you indie heads out there.
Review: Anyone who fell in love first with this dreampop duo following the twilit strains of their Sub Pop debut 'Teen Dream' - all languorous summer haze and melodious abandon - will certainly not be disappointed by 'Depression Cherry', despite its slightly daunting title. Yet longtime fans of Beach House - the band who're in many ways the spiritual torchbearers of the ethereal sound of 4AD and particularly Cocteau Twins - will find strange new depths and substance in this fifth platter, being a still more plaintive and minimal take on their trademark aural spell, stripped down to create a wash of sound as emotionally charged as it is blissfully beguiling.
Review: Anyone who fell in love first with this dreampop duo following the twilit strains of their Sub Pop debut 'Teen Dream' - all languorous summer haze and melodious abandon - will certainly not be disappointed by 'Depression Cherry', despite its slightly daunting title. Yet longtime fans of Beach House - the band who're in many ways the spiritual torchbearers of the ethereal sound of 4AD and particularly Cocteau Twins - will find strange new depths and substance in this fifth platter, being a still more plaintive and minimal take on their trademark aural spell, stripped down to create a wash of sound as emotionally charged as it is blissfully beguiling.
Review: Anyone who fell in love first with this dreampop duo following the twilit strains of their Sub Pop debut 'Teen Dream' - all languorous summer haze and melodious abandon - will certainly not be disappointed by 'Depression Cherry', despite its slightly daunting title. Yet longtime fans of Beach House - the band who're in many ways the spiritual torchbearers of the ethereal sound of 4AD and particularly Cocteau Twins - will find strange new depths and substance in this fifth platter, being a still more plaintive and minimal take on their trademark aural spell, stripped down to create a wash of sound as emotionally charged as it is blissfully beguiling.
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