New York Blog

Beach House
(le) poisson rouge
Wednesday, October 23

To Riff's list of potential Beardo spin-offs, I offer Dancing with the Cat Lady from Beach House. Thought I’d seen this bedtime Baltimore band more times than the number of dollars in my wallet, yet apparently not very recently—Beach House now dance! Used to be organist/front-woman Victoria Legrand would stay firmly seated behind her keyboard stand, exhaling these Haunted Mansion incantations while her co-perfectionist Alex Scally would be hunched so far over he looked like he had scoliosis. But now that the pair has swapped pre-set beats for a real live drummer, they’ve become so uninhibited that they not only stand up, they totally boogie. Scally does this fairly safe hind-legs pony trot while plucking out those narcotic-noir whole notes. But Victoria, man, she cuts a rug: a touch of the Bunny Hop, a dash of the slo-mo Running Man, a bit of Moonwalking in molasses. Occasionally, her moves go a little randy, like when she puts her hand flat on her abdomen and simultaneously sashays, it either looks like a fertility rain dance or your aunt Mabel going off to “Sexual Healing.” No matter, it’s totally bad-ass, especially in the Capri-pants one-piece she wore last night, and she should give lessons weekly on an internet television show, preferably with the Shearwater drummer as her partner. And if that doesn't work out, how about Beach House-Sitting with Beach House?