Beach House

Beach House have announced 7, the group’s 7th full-length record, set for release Friday, May 11 on Mistletone via Inertia Music. 

7 features standouts including the Valentine’s Day 2018 single ‘Lemon Glow‘, along with ‘Black Car‘, ‘Drunk In LA‘, ‘Dark Spring‘, and today, their latest offering, the transcendent ‘Dive‘. All of the songs on 7 began in Beach House’s home studio in Baltimore, and were finished at Carriage House in Stamford, Connecticut and Palmetto Studio in Los Angeles. The album was mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, The Smashing Pumpkins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Killers).

Beach House (Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand) released B-sides and Rarities in 2017, which served as a proverbial “cleaning out the closet” to pave way for a new creative process. Their approach in the creation of 7 was rebirth and rejuvenation. Scally and Legrand used to limit themselves to what they thought they could perform live, but this time that limitation was ignored. Also, instead of one long studio session, Beach House recorded when inspired by batches of songs, which resulted in five mini-sessions over the course of eleven months. 

Unlike the last four albums, 7 didn’t have a producer in the traditional sense. Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom (Peter Kember – MGMT, Panda Bear) became a significant force on this record by shedding conventions and helping to keep the songs alive, fresh, and protected from the destructive elements of recording studio overproduction and over-perfection.  The band’s trusted live drummer from 2016 to the present, James Barone, played on the entire record, helping to keep rhythm at the centre of a lot of these songs.

Beach House were last in Australia in 2016 for Laneway Festival, which included a headline show at the Sydney Opera House. The Music said of that show that “the diversity of the set was testament to the band’s enduring commitment to creating unforgettable sonic experiences“. 7 is testament to that feeling, and is a welcome addition to the bands’ flawless catalogue.