BEACH HOUSE

A couple of years ago I was at a concert where Beach House quietly upstaged the perpetually wayward Cat Power. Chan Marshall is always unpredictable live. I've seen her hypnotize a crowd alone in near darkness. I've witnessed her walking over an audience with a glass of JD and ice singing Otis Redding. This time she seemed merely tired and erratic. Possibly she was bored of her covers band. I don't blame her. Now she's recording an album solo, like in the good old days. Could be sick. The willful southerner in her, that vast displacement, leaves you constantly unsure of her next move. Lonesome introspection or an out of joint jam with Wu-Tang? Don't you doubt it.

Where was I? Beach House. Poet Tom Paulin once memorably described Madonna's Ray Of Light as 'Jacuzzi music'. Well, Teen Dream's an island of claustrophobic warmth surrounded by the cold, cold ocean. Facing an odyssey of sugared reassurance, radicalism shrugged and gave up the ghost. They stick to a template; gauzy reverb guitar, attentive drum machines and caressing organ chords. Victoria Legrand's vocals and lyrics are again a curious paradox of spaced out ethereality and grainy depressiveness. If Chan Marshall's songs can feel uncomfortably exposed, Legrand's remain outwardly elusive. Soft-focus mush aside, their muggy unknowability does beguile and allure, Zebra's languid ruminations almost eclipsing the intoxicating Gila, from Devotion. Following on, Silver Soul shines with equal magnificence in it's subtle glory. Despite resistance, I have been seduced.