Thursday, September 25, 2008
DAYDREAMING, NIGHT TRIPPING: Leave it to the fine folks at Club Mercy (clubmercy.com) to bust out the big guns just as the summer music buzz seems to be wearing off. This Monday, the booking powers that be will bring Baltimore’s beloved Beach House (beachhousemusic.net) to Muddy Waters Café (myspace.com/muddycafesb) for an intimate, all-ages show that you dare not miss.
Known for their love of all things vintage sounding, bandmates Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally are currently on the road, touting the songs behind their stunning February release, Devotion. Their stop in Santa Barbara (the third on their nearly three-month-long cross-country jaunt) will undoubtedly be a sight to behold. Since forming in 2005, Scally and Legrand have been handcrafting deeply personal, compositionally lush, and organ drenched ditties that pull from an innumerable list of influences.
“I was brought into another band that Victoria was in,” Scally recently recalled of their first meeting. “The band was kind of dysfunctional—nobody really did much work for it. And we just sort of busted out a few times, playing music together. We were hanging out a lot; we became friends through the band, and whenever we would make music together there was this kind of ridiculous chemistry; like an immediate chemistry. It’s one of those things that’s really cheesy to say, but it’s just completely natural and it feels perfect and exciting. And it still happens whenever we play and make music together. It’s just a wonderful, nice union.”
Following the release of the duo’s 2006 debut, Beach House, folks around the biz started buzzing. Since then it’s been a steady flow of touring, writing, and recording, all leading up to this year’s critically acclaimed second effort. “The one thing we agree is that we know it’s time to make an album when a family of songs is done,” Scally said of Devotion. “Usually a time period of life will have a real feeling to it. And I think that that album was that year for us. It was from when our first album came out to when we recorded it—pretty much a lot of tours and a lot of weird adjustments and intensity … And I think that a lot of the lyrics and the vibes just channel that energy; that kind of manic adjustment, missing home, missing your loved ones, the constant strangeness … It was probably one of the most intense things—definitely it’s probably the most intense thing I’ve ever done.”
But with great struggle comes great art, and Devotion is no exception. Despite the fact that Legrand and Scally were the only two musicians involved, the result is about as sonically loaded as an album gets. Seeing the pair pull it off in person may just be one of the more exciting things to happen in live music as of late.
“Our first two albums were sort of all written with this idea that we have to be able to play it live,” explained Scally. “So the third member of the band was our tape machine. We recorded everything on tape—usually the bass and the drum—and then we play with it and have a live drummer, too, to bring that to life. We kind of based everything around these tour organs that we can travel with and a guitar.” For those who want to see how it all pans out, Beach House will perform at Muddy Waters on Monday, September 29, at 8 p.m. Call 966-9328 or visit myspace.com/muddycafesb. For the complete interview with Scally, visit independent.com/beachhouse.