Vetiver / Beach House
08-16-2009;

Beach House's pop has always sweltered, so even if the long, narrow, and low-ceilinged Magnet Club seemingly retained and tripled the heat of one of Berlin's warmer late-summer days, it was probably for the best: as the Baltimore duo launched into “Master Of None” midway through their set, it was like they channeled the added temperature into that scruffy sensuality of theirs, all narcotic and drowsy.

Those condensed and old-worldly organ drones built further layers onto the vibrato melodies and, in this live setting (with the help of an additional touring musician), crammed those dusty velvet textures full of warmth. But it wasn't until they moved onto the new material (kind of humbly, actually; Alex Scally almost apologized for being more excited for new rather than old material) when it got really powerful; the first from their upcoming record swirled with ridiculously hard-hitting analogue bliss, organs coming out strong and starry-eyed, their gritty euphoria as lucid as ever. Here's where their style was at its most realized: a transcendent modern humanness drenched in a baroque ornateness, total beauty without contrivance.

Vetiver's cover of Fleetwood Mac's “Save Me A Place” was laced with all the hazy sentimentality of the original, but their set felt more structured and conventional. The crowd seemed to have thinned out slightly, too. It was my own preference for their earlier and lo-fi-er ballads, the abstracted college mysticality of “Arboretum” or “Belle”'s just plain prettiness that made their more solid or straight-up folk come off less rich. The newer Sub Pop stuff has a similarly band-y feel to their four-piece live show (i.e. more drums than hazy vibes), rolling out songs tightly and effortlessly. But even if their relaxed balladry felt endearingly lulling under all that heat, it was a little lighter on the naturalismo than I would have hoped.

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