beaches: she beats

Sprawling Melbourne psych-rock five-piece Beaches return with second album She Beats. Their self-titled debut emerged on Mistletone Records in 2008, making the Australian Music Prize shortlist for that year and featuring in 2010 book 100 Best Australian Albums. In the intervening years, the band have toured the U.S. twice, played All Tomorrow's Parties at the invitation of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, released an EP for NYC label Mexican Summer, and shared stages with the likes of Roky Erickson, Deerhunter, and Wooden Shjips. For She Beats, Beaches have once again joined forces with producer Jack Farley (Twerps, Scott & Charlene's Wedding). And like its predecessor, the album reflects a love for '60s pop, '70s psych, shoe-gaze, prog, southern boogie and Krautrock. But She Beats is bigger, bolder and more ambitious than the debut. For one thing, German guitar icon Michael Rother of Neu!/Harmonia features on two tracks. The band formed a bond with Rother at ATP in Melbourne in 2009, and he invited himself along to their recording sessions during his next Oz tour in 2012. One of these tracks, the cascading sonic swirl "Distance," was premiered on Gorilla vs. Bear and racked up 15k Soundcloud plays within a week. Elsewhere, "Veda" sees the band extending hypnotically eastward, while droning cello scrapes introduce "Tanzanite." On the other end of the spectrum, tracks like "Send Them Away," "Out of Mind," and "Runaway" are upfront, glorious pop, though still heady with Beaches' dreamy guitar heroics. All up, She Beats is rich, confident and layered, a multi-dimensional sonic world to get lost in over and over again. Beaches are Antonia Sellbach (guitar/vocals), Alison Bolger (guitar/vocals), Ali McCann (guitar/vocals), Gill Tucker (bass/vocals), and Karla Way (drums/vocals).

Beaches - Send Them Away