Beach House is a duo formed in 2004 by Victoria Legrand (vocals and organ) and Alex Scally (guitar and keyboard). Their three releases, “Beach House”, “Devotion” and “Teen Dream”, put them at the top of contemporary ethereal pop - with references to ambient, post-rock and the shoegaze revival - always with dreamy melodies. The North American Carpark Records released the first two albums, but for their third LP they decided to go with Sub Pop and hire a prestigious producer, Chris Coady, who has worked with the likes of Grizzly Bear, TV On The Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Thanks to this album, the band reached a much wider audience, so much so in fact that people like Beyoncé and Jay-Z have been spotted at their live shows.

In their songs they offer a kind of dream pop that is both minimal in terms of instrumentation and highly sophisticated in terms of emotional sensibility. The voice of Victoria Legrand (niece of French soundtrack composer Michel Legrand) has often been compared to Nico, because of its low pitch and magnetism. Besides the three albums, the group released an “iTunes Session” and contributed to the digital issue of the much lauded compilation “Dark Was The Night” with a cover version of Queen's “Play The Game”. That same year, Legrand sang background vocals on Grizzly Bear's “Two Weeks” and some time later she worked with the Brooklyn foursome on “Slow Life”, one of the songs on the soundtrack of “Twilight Saga: New Moon”.

Selected discography

“Beach House” (Carpark, 2006)

“Devotion” (Carpark, 2008)

“Teen Dream” (Sub Pop, 2010)