Beach House, now on their fifth studio album, entitled Depression Cherry, seems to have more in common with Lewis Carroll and his world of rabbits, talking playing cards, and overall strangeness and wonder than with the usual comparisons that are made about the group. One reviewer on NPR thought that a comparison between the group and Cocteau Twins sufficed to give listeners their bearings when approaching the latest record. But when listening to this album, I can’t help but remember being a boy, a time when my imagination was stronger, often overpowering my reason—I’d see ghosts in the house flashing by in the hallways—and so the usual musical tropes and descriptors don’t work for me. Beach House makes wonderfully dream-laden music. But as the title Depression Cherry might suggest, there are some dark places one must go in order to reap beauty.
Certain music often reminds us of other things than music itself. Beach House, from the opening track, Levitation, to the last song, Days of Candy, put me in the world of fantastical books that were also a part of my younger days. And this is what Beach House, with their world of eerie and beautiful organ sounds, Victoria Legrand’s powerful and haunting voice, and Alex Scally’s brilliant guitar work, does best. To say that Depression Cherry is an original work is akin to saying that bicycles have handlebars. In short, none of the tired comparisons will do, at least the ones I’ve been reading. I had the chance to talk with Alex about the band’s “influences” and life in Baltimore, their home base.
You guys have such a distinct sound. What are some musical influences on Beach House?
I’d say that wholesale, Victoria and I are just music lovers. There isn’t any world of music that hasn’t hit us. So … classic music from the ’50s and ’60s was the main music—Motown, The Beach Boys, Doors, and all the early soul and rock n’ roll—it was everything. And as I got older it was The Cure, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley. All of these people. The greatest people were also [our] greatest influences.
That makes more sense than when I hear journalists say “Cocteau Twins” or other things…
Yeah. We didn’t really listen to them. Strangely, they weren’t part of us. I certainly love the Cocteau Twins, but they weren’t a big part of my early musical life at all.
Beach House has some of the most marvelous videos, such as Wishes. I’ve read that both of you are fans of cinema and film. What are some films and who are some directors you admire?
Again, so many. I really like the French director, Jean-Jacques Beineix… he’s part of cinema delook and it’s very visually intriguing stuff. He did this great movie called Betty Blue. I love Hal Ashby’s Coming Home and The Last Detail. Also, Emir Kusturica, a Croatian director…he did Black Cat, White Cat… once again, it’s kind of endless.
What are a few…just a few…books you’ve been delving into as of late? I only ask because when I hear Beach House I feel like I’m in Alice in Wonderland…
Yeah! I really like sci-fi. So I just read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch which is a totally awesome Phillip K. Dick book. And Spring Snow by Mishima… Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter… she’s an Italian novelist. Those are maybe the last three books I read. And I love them all.
Sometimes it gets old talking only about music. I don’t know if that’s your experience too, but …
Yeah. Sure.
So, with Depression Cherry, like all of your records, I know it’s hard to talk about craft and process. Why do you think that is, and how did you and Victoria come together to make music?
I think it’s easy to talk about music in a non-musical way. Like, if you’re a pop music writer, like a pop radio music writer, you could talk for hours about that type of music, because so much of it is just the engineering of catchiness. “We drop the beat back in here, and that makes you feel excited, then we drop it out here and go to the melody that we just know is catchy,” [laughs] and it would be really easy to talk about the production of that music. But it might not be very easy for the person who wrote the hook to talk about the process. You know? Because who knows where that came from? Whoever made the chords and melody might have had some crazy special energy. Somebody still created that song, that super-marketable, polished thing. But I think that’s where it ends. We [Beach House] don’t do that latter thing, turning it into a super-palatable product. We do a lot more of just trying to build up beauty that just immerges from you and that immerges from human souls and human souls like to hear them, the songs. It’s hard for me to talk about it because no one can really talk about it. I think, and this is just my opinion, that music is the least intellectual of all the art forms. You know, there is so much for a painter, a filmmaker or a writer to talk about what they’re doing while working… whereas music is precognitive, coming out of you right then and there.
And you and Victoria, how did you come together? I know she’s from Paris and you’re from Baltimore…
She came to Baltimore after attending college in the states. She came to Baltimore to play music with someone, and we just started playing together and had chemistry.
I’ve read that Victoria has said you two play in a “trance,” going back to the impossibility of talking about craft … that you two just start playing and it’s a mysterious, organic process…?
It’s usually repeating something that feels really good. A chord or beat or something. And you have this feeling and it’s taking you somewhere. And then you kind of repeat it and see if it goes somewhere…. It’s just kind of repeating something, and waiting for the next thing to happen.
Obviously Ferguson has been on the news throughout the year in St. Louis. Do you have any comments about what’s been happening in Baltimore and about the settlement that happened today?
First of all, I think it’s completely inexcusable for anyone to die in police custody. Police culture needs to change, and deep societal problems really need to change. Investigated. Looked at. Dealt with. You know? By all of us. I’m just hoping that these things turn into something positive and that we can all do that together… But as far as [inaudible] I feel like everyone wants a scapegoat. And I don’t really care about scapegoats. Everyone is trying to put the blame on someone, to blame it on them. And I don’t like that. This issue is so big. The idea that one pins it on this or that officer … they’re part of a huge system … I don’t know. And if officers don’t get charged, it sets a tone that people can just get away with that. Every way you go is wrong, because it’s the giant system that is the problem. I want that dealt with, not just a few officers.
After the interview, indeed before it, I am no longer overpowered by imagination except when escaping into an album like Depression Cherry. The world is too much with us, perhaps? It’s good to know that Beach House is out there working, working at their craft, putting sample after sample into their touring keyboards, making music that is unsettling, dream-like and lulling. Why talk about it to death?
Beach House performs at The Pageant Sunday, September 27 at 8 p.m.; Jessica Pratt opens. For more info or for tickets, visit thepageant.com.
