CREATIVE REINS
Beach House takes more control over process on seventh album
Victoria Legrand is always on the go.
Whether it be recording new music or packing up and heading on tour, she lives a life in music.
Through it all, Legrand has learned a trick that helps put balance into her life.
“Put your phone away at night,” she says in a recent phone interview from Baltimore. “It would have been an impossible task to imagine. I did it, and it’s brought so much more relaxation to my life.”
Legrand is one-half of the dream pop band — and critical darling — Beach House. The other member of the duo is Alex Scally.
The duo formed in 2004.
Flash forward 14 years, and Beach House is gearing up to release its seventh album, “7,” on May 11.
On the new album, Legrand and Scally worked faster than on previous albums.
“I think we took a lot more control of our creative power,” she says. “And in terms of recording ourselves, it moved very quickly. We recorded here in Baltimore at hour home studio, and we spent less time in these professional studios. In the past, especially with ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ and ‘Bloom’ we noticed there was a pattern to our music. That’s when we started to make changes.”
For “7,” Beach House reached out to producer Sonic Boom, who helped the duo capture the darker side.
“We did have more songs overall,” she says. “The ones that made the album were clearly the ones that had to be together. ‘Last Ride’ always felt like the end of the album.”
With excitement over the new music rising, Legrand says a lot of the new material won’t be performed on Beach House’s current tour.
The band also has seven albums’ worth of material to pull from for its set list.
“It’s insane,” she says of the growing catalog of music. “We’ve been rehearsing, and the range is so vast now. We’re going to mix it up with songs we haven’t played in years. There are some songs that we’ve never played live that we’re going to do. The record is just coming out, so we’re going to same a lot more of the songs for later this year. It takes a good couple months for people to become familiar with the new stuff. We don’t want to put on a show with entirely new music. Ultimately, it comes down to creating a show, and that’s what we enjoy doing. Every show is different.”