Friday, May 14, 2021

Day 0986 - Teen Dream

Beach House "Teen Dream" (2010)


Beach House are a duo who had initially tried to work in a lo-fi way, leaning on their limitations to push them further and then often drenching the results in reverb.   

After two albums, the band signed to Sub Pop records and recorded this album.  They changed things up, going for a more sophisticated approach.   I'm just listening to one of the previous albums at the moment to get an idea of them and it seems like a similar vibe in some ways, so I guess the change in approach is around production choices (they said they used hardly any reverb this time around) and arrangement ideas.

The album opens with "Zebra" which is clean guitar and some nice layered vocals backing it.   "Walk in the Park" has a pulsing organ groove that seems like it should be a breezy Beach Boys-style piece but instead feels somehow ominous, like there's an underlying unhappiness.  Looking at the lyrics, I suspect that was intentional.  

"Better Times" starts with a nice light keyboard and starts getting subtle guitar parts coming in too.   The chorus somehow has a bit more oomph to it while still being restrained.  It eventually builds to a climax of arpeggios and vocal.  "Real Love" is a spacious piano ballad with atmospheric synth sounds in the background.

Another one where I liked the overall sound and would happily listen to it again (or check out some of their other albums).  Like it's a nice sound, but the songs didn't necessarily stick in my memory after I'd finished listening to the song/album for some reason.   

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