Beach House
Beach House recently released their third LP, Teen Dream on the indie Holy Grail, Sub Pop. They’re previous two full lengths were fairly standard dream pop albums, floating had laid is still there, but they’ve built a much wider, diverse sound above it. Each lyric is around in whispered lyrics and drawn out keyboards. The foundation that Beach House intimately sung by Victoria Legrand in such a way that you hang on every heart breaking word.

Owen Pallett

To this point Pallett had gone by the name Final Fantasy (yes, taken from the video game). I imagine the name change is copyright related, but that’s the only thing he’s left behind. Pallett is an orchestral genius with strings being his primary forte, having also contributed arrangements to Arcade Fire among others. With Heartland he brings his classicist arrangements full circle with a much broader use of instruments and sounds. Despite this still being a solo act it finally sounds more like a full orchestra and might finally yield him the attention he’s been long overdue.

Vampire Weekend
At this point we all know what Vampire Weekend is. If you don’t like this band there is something inherent with their sound that you don’t like and Contra isn’t going to change that. Contra has, however, showed me that there is much more to the than simply catch pop songs. They take some steps into moderately experimental music, but it’s layered over the sound that we’ve come to love/hate and nothing in between. Haters are going to hate, but if there’s anything you like about this band Contra is not going to disappoint you.