[ Sydney favorites ]

Showing results 1 through 3 of 3.

BEACH HOUSEDepression Cherry(Sub Pop)cd$ 14.98

On "Levitation", the opening track of Beach House's stellar new album Depression Cherry, it's difficult to not feel like you're doing just what the song title says: rising off the ground and peacefully floating into space. With every release, Beach House have reaffirmed themselves as one of our favorites, and with their fifth full-length, they most certainly have not broken this pattern. This beautiful shoegazey dream pop seems to pulse at the exactly the same rhythm of your heart as you drift off to sleep. The twinkling, subtly moving arrangement paired with Legrand's soft, sweet vocals recalls Yo La Tengo at their most tender, circa And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. Standout track "PPP" finds Legrand crooning in such a way that you could imagine the song echoing from a transistor radio, while Alex Scally's guitar lends it a sparkling quality which can only be described as intergalactic. Another favorite, "Days of Candy", begins with a stunning choral arrangement countered by Legrand's whispery falsetto, and delicately builds in volume and intensity before drifting away and leaving us speechless. The rich warmth of this album is as lush as its delightfully soft red velvet packaging - a sensation we imagine will be incredibly familiar after the many, many repeat listens it will surely warrant. Depression Cherry, as with all of Beach House's music, is a place of shelter for your deepest, most personal moments; let this music bring you home.

BEACH HOUSEThank Your Lucky Stars(Sub Pop)lp$ 17.98

"Come a little closer," Victoria Legrand croons on "All Your Yeahs", inviting us to lean in to Beach House's new (nearly surprise) release, Thank Your Lucky Stars. Trailing their last album by only a handful of weeks, really, it'd be easy to see Thank Your Lucky Stars as no more than a sequel to the highly-hyped, velvet-coated opus that was Depression Cherry. However, Thank Your Lucky Stars stands on its own. Its shoegazey guitar solos weave their way through warm synth melodies (notably on "One Thing") and Legrand's vocals shine through more clearly than on past releases. This album is a bit of a darker and heavier take on their style of twinkly, extra-terrestrial style of dream pop. The weight can be felt most on this album's twisted and tortured B-side tracks "Rough Song" and "Elegy to the Void". But, with the perfect amount of lo-fi fuzz and room to breathe between each song, we're given the time to appreciate how simply beautiful this album is. Every other Beach House release has felt like the soundtrack to a loving embrace. Thank Your Lucky Stars reaches out to us as honest reassurance on the nights where we feel alone remind us that, though we are each singular stars, we reside in a sky populated with billions of constellations. (Compact disc version forthcoming, but this was such a rush release they didn't get it done at the same time as the vinyl.)

BLEEKER, ALEX AND THE FREAKSCountry Agenda(Sinderlyn)cd$ 15.98

Maybe the most instantly compelling thing we can say about Country Agenda is that every single time we've played it in the store, we've seen customers unabashedly and openly dancing along. The psych-folk vibes on this album are straight up groovy, no question about it. Alex Bleeker also plays bass in the sunshiney, dreamy rock group Real Estate (there are two Real Estate-rooted solo ventures on this list - check out Martin Courtney too!); Country Agenda is the third full-length from Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, a group of friends who have been making music together since college. With the knowledge that this band made their rounds this summer playing Grateful Dead tribute sets with everyone from Kyle Field of Little Wings to Jenny Lewis to Lee Ranaldo to Mr. Bill Kreutzmann himself, the Dead inspiration on Country Agenda is no surprise. The troubadour-folk vox bring a little bit of a woozy Neil Young sensibility to this collection as well. At the same time, maybe due to the collaborative nature of the music, something about AB&TF's concoction of down-to-earth guitars, stand-out bass lines, and swooping keys is really all their own. The jangly, laid-back strumming paired with marine references and track titles like "California" and "Downright Stinson" make this the perfect California-coastal roadtrip album, which is delightfully ironic coming from a New Jersey transplant. Bleeker's unique croon, especially beautiful on "The Rest" and "Sealong Hair", feels carried to us on a distinctly Pacific Ocean breeze (the Atlantic can suck it), and we've been humming along ever since it arrived.