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Tonight: Beach House Listening Party

Local devotees of Baltimore dreampop legends Beach House fans are in for a genuine treat this evening when the fantastic people at Black Dots on Grant Street host a special listening party for the band’s latest release 7, two weeks before it arrives in stores. From 5pm to 7pm the store will be giving the hotly anticipated album a couple of spins for the assembled faithful to savor while trying to win free stuff and collectively trying to wish into reality a Buffalo date on the band’s upcoming tour, which would be wonderful to be honest. 7 manifests online and in the physical world May 11 on Sub Pop Records.

Pitchfork Music Festival: Friday

While I’m sad to see it go, Pitchfork Music Festival was without a doubt one of my favorite music festival experiences of all time.  There wasn’t a band all weekend that I was disappointed by, and I was blown away by multiple bands I hadn’t heard before. With a forecast filled with rain and thunderstorms almost all weekend, somehow the rain held off for almost the entire weekend, making it near perfect. Basically, for the next year, you’ll find me in my room listening to Broken Social Scene counting down the days until next year’s festival. Friday featured performances by Car Seat Headrest, Twin Peaks, Carly Rae Jepsen, Julia Holter, the legendary Broken Social Scene, and many more.  Check out some of the photos below, and if you want to see more than just 4 or 5 shots of each band, click HERE for a full gallery. Car Seat Headrest Whitney[...]

Beach House – Depression Cherry

At this point, you really have to hand it to Beach House. With a decade under their belts, the duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally have managed to constantly put out well received material, drawing clear shoegaze influence and crafting it into their own dreamy, synth soaked sound, all while managing to create something special on each release. As my listen counter of the band’s newest release, Depression Cherry, began to rack up, I noticed something: this band has done an absolutely incredible job with recycling the same sound for their past four albums. No one has seemed to bat an eye as Beach House reuses their instrumental style of dream pop release after release, droning backing organ chord by droning backing organ chord, programmed drum beat by programmed drum beat. That being said, while their instrumentals have remained stagnant for the most part, the duo seems to have[...]

Beach House at Town Ballroom (8/21/15)

Whenever I’m writing a review of show, I always bumrush the stage to get a pic of the night’s setlist because writing it down in real time is a pain and it takes you out of the all important moment. But there were no setlists to be had last night after Beach House’s mesmerizing return to the Town Ballroom, and I knew I was in real trouble because piecing this show back together in my mind afterward would be nigh impossible. Like the best REM dreams, it feels like Beach House’s set basically just happened; while it obviously had a beginning and an end, between the unidentified new songs and gossamer vibe, everything else in between was beyond time. It was a pleasant sensation to float along with for the duration, but that means no setlist, only fragments. After a bracing but brief opening set by Baltimore garage rock duo[...]

Tonight: Beach House

Beach House is a band that wants you to pay attention to more than just their haze-pop sound. The Baltimore duo has been at it for just about 11 years now and they’ve maintained consistent notability throughout. But they’ve also been met with some opposition over, oddly enough, the consistency of their sound and the lack of drastic sonic change over the years. In a 2012 interview with Pitchfork, Alex Scally discloses, “Writing about us, people have said: ‘Do we need another album by this band?’ What the fuck is that? That only matters if you’re just listening to sound…A lot of people listening to music now don’t listen to the songs or lyrics at all. They just go, ‘Good tones…’ and that’s it. But we’re obsessed with songs. Sometimes, I feel like people aren’t listening to our songs, they’re just listening to the sound.” Beach House is heavily identified[...]

Just Announced: Beach House

All has been a bit quiet on the Beach House front lately as the duo has been prepping the follow up album to 2012’s Bloom. Since its debut back in 2006, the Baltimore group has released a string of stellar, and at most times, flat out gorgeous albums, establishing itself one of the best acts of the dream pop genre. And with said new album, titled Depression Cherry, dropping on August 28th, Beach House has just announced a massive world tour, one whose itinerary includes a date at Town Ballroom on Friday, August 21st, the band’s first Buffalo date since June of 2010. Tickets go on sale this Friday, May 29th, at noon for $26 in advance, $29 at the door.