Music by Beach House and Pat Metheny
BEACH HOUSE
Depression Cherry
(Sub Pop) Baltimore dreampop duo Beach House invented a formula for songwriting that they’ve apparently found to be so lucrative they only stray from it in minor degrees. They start with just a few sounds that twinkle like stars — a sustained organ, some keyboard notes, a programmed drumbeat — with Victoria Legrand’s voice hovering about, in an orbit by itself. By the second verse, the view typically opens up, as if going from stars to a full constellation. It’s almost like a magic trick; they accomplish this without bombast, by simply layering sounds. The tempo never breaks a sweat, and the lyrics are wistfully vague when they are fully coherent, yet it sounds truly epic — when it doesn’t sound like lullabies or Christmas music. The musicians have treated their careers like their songs, slowly adding layers to a sturdy bedrock. Depression Cherry finds them building upon the success of their 2010 breakout Teen Dream and 2012’s Bloom. “Sparks” lets a muffled sample and crunchy guitar waft in and out, drenching everything in so much reverb that it sounds like indie rock from a distant planet. “Space Song,” however, centers on a clean-sounding cascade of notes. “Days of Candy” begins as a nearly a cappella choir before deep (by their standards) keyboards sputter into the mix. For musicians with a sound so meditative that it invites stillness in listeners, they’re more restless than they appear. — Robert Ker
PAT METHENY Hommage à Eberhard Weber (ECM) This live album was taken from two Stuttgart concerts staged last January to celebrate the 75th birthday of the pioneering German bassist Eberhard Weber, who hasn’t been able to play since suffering a stroke in 2007. The opener, “Résumé Variations,” offers clarion soprano-sax improvisations by Jan Garbarek, in whose band Weber played for 25 years, with loops of Weber’s bass from recordings. Guitarist Pat Metheny, who first recorded with Weber on Gary Burton’s 1974 album Ring, composed “Hommage,” the centerpiece of the concerts and of this album. Here Metheny also incorporates a virtual Weber — his idea was “to find video elements of Eberhard improvising and then reorganize, chop, mix and orchestrate elements of those performances together into a new composition.” Weber’s strong, fleet-fingered bass lines are surrounded by, and interwoven with, live music from Metheny, Burton (vibes), Scott Colley (bass), Danny Gottlieb (drums), Klaus Graf (alto sax), Ernst Hutter (euphonium) — and the SWR Big Band. The half-hour-plus piece is a fascinating aural experience, sometimes softly luxuriant, sometimes dramatic and intense. Some of the Weber tunes for the tribute concerts were selected by composer/bandleader Michael Gibbs; he arranged one of the compositions, “Maurizius,” for the big band and conducted the performance; it holds lovely solos by Burton and by Paul McCandless on English horn. This is an unusual album full of glorious music. — Paul Weideman