Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Tuesday June 7

Coachella 2010 motivated me to study up on Beach House. Teen Dream is a very beautiful, cohesive album and I’m glad I checked it out.

I’ve seen some reviews comparing singer Victoria Legrand’s voice to Nico; I’m not sure I see that. She reminds me of Erika Wennerstrom if she decided to sing more gently and less bluesy. The sound of the album is very 70s-pop-hits, in the best possible way. It could go back in time and no one hearing it then would be tripped out by it a la Back-to-the-Future-Johnny-Be-Goode.

I’ve only just learned this is actually their third album. Clearly, the older albums warrant checking out.

Listened: Tuesday June 6

After having reviewed so many GZM albums, I’m running out of things to say. As usual though, they have completely badass psychedelic cover art.

Unlike Patio, on Tatay, the band’s second album, they seem to have acquired better instruments and mixers and such, so it sounds much less like a band playing in a garage. There are obvious references to Captain Beefheart and the Velvet Underground here, so they’re a bit past noodling and onto emulating their heroes.

After hearing all the older albums, I have new appreciation for how well Introducing… collected all the gems together!

Listened: Tuesday June 7

Talkie Walkie is when I started to like Air again. I loved Moon Safari, but then 10,000 Hz Legend was a bit of a letdown, being quite different. With Talkie Walkie, they got their mojo back.

I particularly love Alone in Kyoto, which I’ve heard used as background music in a great many online videos of beautiful landscape photos and the like. It’s relatively simple, but very evocative and alive. I also love the weird beats in Universal Traveler. I can sing the oddly enunciated lyrics for hours.

Despite loving this album, I’ve been remiss at purchasing their later releases. I need to catch up!