Beach House - Biography

Beach House are Victoria Legrand (niece of famed French composer, Michel Legrand) and her lifelong friend, Alex Scally. They have been playing music forever, each since childhood in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and France.

Beach House formed in the summer, it was very late at night and there was a lot of heat. Their songs start simple and grow organically like tiny skeletons that multiply layers of necessary flesh. Victoria sings/sighs and plays organ; Alex plays slide, guitar, keyboards. Their songs are dreamy, druggy, hazy, shoegazey, impossibly romantic, dissolute and elated.

In the Beach House world, outside influences have been purely atmospheric. There are many groups and artists that have entranced the duo: Zombies, Brian Wilson, Neil Young, Big Star, Chris Bell, the list goes on; however, there isn't one particular group or artist that Beach House admires more than another.

By not forcing the way their songs come to fruition and by allowing all of their ideas to exist and play freely, an otherworldly space is created: organs, slide guitars, reverb, harmony, layers, accidents, echoes and melodies stand by themselves like the ones in everyone's childhood memories.

“Baltimore's Beach House are singer/organist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally. Because they come from such a well-defined tradition-- the boy-girl duo making lovesick, narcotized rock with lots of depth and sweep-- it's pretty much impossible to listen to this, their debut, without making certain connections. Bands like Mazzy Star, Galaxie 500, Spiritualized, and Slowdive will come to mind, but this is neither pastiche nor homage. While a lot of their sounds and shapes are the same, Beach House's recipe of fairground waltzes, ghosted lullabies, and woodland hymnals feels more intimate than those of their forerunners. The Hope Sandovals and Jason Pierces of the world mostly wanted to make their songs bigger than their heartaches, to rub out messiness with beauty; Beach House play their songs for a much smaller room, and aren't afraid to stare down a mistake if it comes bounding back in echoes.”
– Pitchfork review (rating: 8.1)