This weekend, the Baltimore duo Beach House arrives in Los Angeles for two performances in support of its most recent work. The pair, which features keyboardist and vocalist Victoria Legrand and multi-instrumentalist Alex Scally, has over the past decade composed a luxurious brand of guitar pop that draws on influences ranging from Brill Building songcraft to ’70s-era Fleetwood Mac to noisy Brit-pop.

Last year, the group released two albums. The first, called “Depression Cherry,” came out in the so-called “traditional” sense: with a release date, both physical and digital copies available for purchase and stream. A few months later, it surprised fans with an entirely different album called “Thank Your Lucky Stars.”

The band is touring in support of both albums and will perform sets at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Friday, and on Sunday as part of the annual FYF Fest in Exposition Park.

Last week, singer and lyricist Legrand spoke on the phone during a tour stop in Columbia, Mo. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.


Beach House usually takes its time between albums. What was the thinking behind releasing two of them in such quick succession?

We got back from “Bloom” touring in 2013, and I took a couple months just not doing anything. But then at some point during 2014, in the spring, we started writing again, and we always approach things like that very much in the moment. Once we started, we just kept writing, and we just did what was happening.

We finished “Depression Cherry,” but songs kept happening. They were clearly very different than the ones that we had for “Depression Cherry,” so we just kept writing. We found ourselves with the second record.


You didn’t consider these songs as extras from “Depression Cherry”?

We knew that we had two records. But, you know, as the process goes along, you learn more and more about what you’ve actually got at some point, and [in] 2014, we decided that “Depression Cherry” would have the traditional release and that “Thank Your Lucky Stars” did not need a traditional release, and that we didn’t want to have to wait another 10 months to put out these songs, and that we’d want to play them on tour.

We felt that we had the right as artists to do whatever we want. That’s really what it comes down to, is us kind of being fatigued by the system just a little, in terms of the wait as artists. It was never a comment on press or anything like that.

We’ve never intended to be antagonistic. It was purely out of our own impatience and excitement. And then, in the end, fans got excited because there was more songs than expected.


It was never a plan to have it be a double LP or anything like that. We just wanted “Thank Your Lucky Stars” to come out like records would come out when we young. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, bands could just put out — the Beatles, there’s so many bands that would just put out multiple records a year. We just kind of thought, “Well, why can’t we just do that? Why can’t we just put out two records?’ And we did it.

We are not the first ones that have done it. It’s not an original idea. But the hardest thing about it was, how could we release the albums but not have it come across as a marketing scheme?

Keeping a secret in this day and age can come across as truly disingenuous and phony and gimmicky, and so to actually keep it a secret and build hype out of that — have nothing about it and then just have it come out, keeping it as simple as possible — was really challenging. But I think that we managed to do that and to retain some sort of innocence about that second record.


Honestly, it’s only been in the last couple days that I’ve really explored “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” I hope you understand, but the volume of music is just overwhelming.

Of course. I come from an era where there was more gestation. People had more time to listen to stuff. Really, it was a matter of it being whatever it was, allowing it to enter the universe as simply as possible, and as purely as possible, and that was about it.

‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ was more like a strange little sister that smokes cigarettes and doesn’t give a .... Victoria Legrand, Beach House

We didn’t expect people would get it right away. But in this day and age, people want to get it right away. They want to be the first person to figure it out, to come up with the tagline — whatever the hell the terminology people use in the press. It was really just about its birth into the world.


What do you think the differences are between the works?

The record felt a little more punk and just had a different character than “Depression Cherry,” which had more of a ... maybe you could say regal or elegant or a massive entrance into the universe. “Thank Your Lucky Stars” was more like a strange little sister that smokes cigarettes and doesn’t give a … . Why would she have a grand debutante ball? It doesn’t make any sense. She doesn’t want that.

We are always listening to the music and seeing what it wants, in terms of album art and treatment and everything down to the shows. We’ll never have the same show for an album. The band will go from between two and four members, depending on the record that we make, depending on the music that were making. We are always going to modify things according to what we are making. It’s not something that’s fixed.

The cover of Beach House’s “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” (Sub Pop Records )


What is that photo on the cover of “Thank Your Lucky Stars”?

That is a family photo from my family, and it is an image that the second I found it spoke to me so intensely and was so immediately connected to “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” I just feel really lucky to have discovered it. It was a picture that one day I found and I just couldn’t believe I’d never seen it.

It related to the femininity of the record. The colors, the textures, the fabrics in it. The diamond chokers. The gaze. I find that there’s a lot of femininity in “Thank Your Lucky Stars” — dare I say feminism. But there are many themes within that album that I felt bounced off artistically with that image.

There’s a lot of terrible music out there. For tips on the stuff that’s not, follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit


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