Beach House is the debut studio album by American dream pop duo Beach House. It was released on October 3, 2006, by Carpark Records in North America, Bella Union in Europe, and Mistletone Records in Australia. The album was recorded on a 4-track recording tape in 2005 over a two-day period in Scally's basement, and features a lo-fi sound. The album was received well by contemporary music critics.
In 2004, lead vocalist Victoria Legrand moved from Paris to Baltimore after being dissatisfied with theater school,[2] and because someone who went to Vassar College, where she graduated from, was living there as well.[3] That same year, she met guitarist Alex Scally, who grew up in the city, through a friend and began creating music together, eventually forming Beach House.[4] He invited Legrand to his house to try a variety of organs he had used on 4-track recordings, kept in storage, and both got along well.[5] Aside from bonding over music, Scally worked with his father as a carpenter, while Legrand worked as a waiter at a Mexican restaurant.[6][7]
They began recording their first album in 2005 in Scally's basement, which was recorded on a 4-track recording tape over a two-day period.[8][9][4] Inspiration for their band name came from "House on the Hill," one of the songs recorded for the album.[3] Several songs were written during the summer of that year, with the high temperatures at the time making the process "go slower".[3] They gained recognition in August 2006, after their song "Apple Orchard" was featured on a Pitchfork MP3 mixtape.[10]
Composition
The album has been described as an indie pop record with "shoegazer textures".[11][12] Legrand's vocals throughout the album were likened to Nico and Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star.[11][13]Almost Cool said the band created an album of "lo-fi, hazy summer dream pop".[14] The opening track, "Saltwater", is a lazy, drifting song built on scratchy, low-key synthetic beats that got "flooded with softly spreading guitar distortion and incandescent organ".[12] "Master Of None" has a "more radiant synths and dreamy guitar rolling out over a slightly funkier rhythm."[14] "Auburn And Ivory" is a siren-song of 60's psychedelia and classical influences that's a duller, more stoney take on The Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire".[12] "Childhood" is "the most upbeat song on the album, and it's one of the warmest."[12]
Beach House was "quietly"[3] released on October 3, 2006, through Carpark Records and Bella Union.[13] In January 2007, the band released a music video for "Master of None."[23] They released another video for the track on July 2007, which coincided with the official release of the album in the United Kingdom.[24] The album had a remastered reissue in 2010 by HeartBreakBeat Records with a run limited to 1,000 copies on black vinyl.[25] In 2012, a pressing on special edition white vinyl was released through Bella Union.[26] By April of that same year, Beach House had sold 24,000 copies in United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan.[27]
Upon release, Beach House was received well by contemporary music critics.[3] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 73, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[15] In a positive review Mark Pytlik of Pitchfork said that the album evoked a "recipe of fairground waltzes, ghosted lullabies, and woodland hymnals" and compared the work of the duo to Mazzy Star, Spiritualized and Slowdive.[20] The website also included the album at number sixteen on their list of the top 50 albums of 2006.[28] MacKenzie Wilson of AllMusic said the album is "one of the most mystical indie-pop surprises to arrive in 2006."[11] Jordan Dowling of Drowned in Sound stated that it is an album "that yearns for a simpler life, for an existence always tinted rose and viewed through eyes misted by joyous tears".[16] Giving the album a positive review, Lost at Sea said the album was "made for gray days indoors or late August afternoons spent lying in golden fields staring at blue skies," while comparing it to Yo La Tengo's album And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out.[12]
Almost Cool said "it sounds like a late summer album, but it's just dark enough that I bet it will sound nice looking out the window to a dusting of snow on the ground as well."[14]Dusted Magazine said it is "a dream of an album."[29] Sarah Liss of Now called it a "solid debut,"[19] while Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian called it "deeply atmospheric, and occassionally stirring."[17] Sullivan also stated that "[Auburn and Ivory] proves that atmosphere isn't enough to carry a whole album."[17] Some critics also regarded the impossibility of finding song highlights within the album. Rich Hughes of The Line of Best Fit explained that "A slight shifting of the tempo would serve to make this a more memorable record but, due to it’s shortness, the few highlights that are here are worthy of your attention."[18] In a mixed review, Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone said that "finding the best bits in these sleepy songs [within the album] often feels like hard work."[21]
Legacy
Four years after release, British folk music trio Tony, Caro and John (pictured) were given proper attribution to "Lovelier Girl", in which Beach House adapted the trio's song "Snowdon Song".
Beach House adapted British folk trio Tony, Caro and John's song "Snowdon Song" on the album, changing the key and time signature, and altering the lyrics and renaming it to "Lovelier Girl" with the trio given no attribution. Four years after the album's release, the trio contacted them. After amicable discussions on copyright, the authorship of the "Lovelier Girl" version of the song is now jointly attributed to Beach House and Tony Doré of the trio.[30]
"So we settled everything with them and they're fine and we're fine. We made sure all the necessary royalties go to them and all that stuff, and they're in the index as the co-writers," Scally says. "We had no idea on our first record that's how that thing worked. You don't know anything when you're just kids in a basement making a record."
↑Pitchfork Staff (October 8, 2019). "The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s". Pitchfork. Retrieved May 6, 2023. Beach House are nothing if not devoted to a mood. On their first two records, that atmosphere was one of lo-fi wistfulness...
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