Artist	Song

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With its first three albums, Beach House — Maryland duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally — has put together a tapestry of interlocking pop styles that fall somewhere on the Venn diagram containing sub-sets labelled dreamy, baroque and ethereal. He concentrates on guitars and keys, she sounds a bit like Nico, and the overall result is never less than enchanting. The woozy flourishes on 2009 single "Norway" take us into weirdly refracted sonic realms, "Lovlier Girl" from 2006's self-titled debut album works as a warm antidote to the effects of gravity, and "Home Again" from middle album [i]Devotion[/i] perfects what we might call the mermaid effect: follow too closely and you may end up, dazed and mesmerized, in a watery snare. Currently on Sub Pop, Beach House promises only to add to its strange beauty as the years ahead unfold.

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