Cheese on Toast

"People always come back to us (when they have heard our music) with y'know, experiences and pictures; so I think that often that's how people hear us - as well as an emotional or sentimental response. Something that they could adapt to their own lives somehow." she explains.

"The relationship is a working relationship and we understand eachother. Love is something that is very intense for me. People are intense for me, I am intrigued by all of that and the mystery and the games and all that, musically it gets out somehow and he understands that and handles that very well - we are really alike - we don't even need to speak about a lot of things because we both understand it. It's just a really well oiled level of communication. It strengthens our ability to communicate ideas - it's such a good working relationship that we can just work through anything."

I wonder, as a lyricist and musician which comes first for Victoria, the words or the music?

"They come in different ways. Sometimes they come from the music I write, sometimes I'll hear a melody in the lyrics I write. I think about about words as symbols too; I think I tend to be abstract... I don't think they are like literal stories but I like to piece together words to kinda create strange scenarios."

"A lot of it comes from memories too - I think of songs as combinations of things - they can start from something that triggers a phrase or an emotion and then you just go there - the music starts to lead you and it goes on it's own and you let it go. It's something that comes from you, but is ultimately bigger than you. And I think that's how people find connection with it; because its not always about you, it's about everything around you that influences your life and has an effect on you."

"Music is my way of experiencing life and dealing with it, and what happens to me.
A lot of that goes into song."

I imagine that with that sort of intensity, that, playing live, they must get quite wrapped up, quite lost in the music?


INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA LEGRAND OF BEACH HOUSE by Andrew Tidball Beach House are Baltimore based two piece Victoria Legrand and Alex Scully who make dreamy, shimmery ballads. It's not so much melancholic as it is contemplative. Actually, it's quite hard to describe them without resorting to lofty, creatively contradictory metaphors. Victoria described their sound, on their MySpace page as "Visual Visual Visual" - "I'm responsible for that" she chuckles on the telephone, "I was making a joke of genre as 'visual visual visual' - it's how I feel about music, and writing it, and the way I listen to it - it helps cultivate the imagination."
"People always come back to us (when they have heard our music) with y'know, experiences and pictures; so I think that often that's how people hear us - as well as an emotional or sentimental response. Something that they could adapt to their own lives somehow." she explains. I wonder, then, since Beach House make such beautiful music, what the mist beautiful thing Victoria has seen. The question puts her off kilter for a moment; perhaps not wanting to bestow the award to just one thing without having time to really think... "I really enjoy driving through the south west...." she starts, cautiously, "and The white sands in Mexico... and..." she bides her time, "The ocean is beautiful..." before she enthusiastically announces, "Peoples eyes, I've seen some beautiful eyes."
Victoria still works as a bartender to make ends meet; she works in a rowdy Mexican restaurant, she tells me. Perhaps not the first environment I'd expect to find her in "I'm not serious as my music might lead you to believe." she assures me. "The area I work in in Baltimore is, well I don't want to use the word 'trashy', but I am going to... " she laughs. You must overhear some pretty funny things? "Actually yeah, it was at the supermarket near where I work and I heard a mother talking to her twelve year old son about him dating some girl and saying that he was 'pussy-whipped'." she laughs. Victoria comes from a classical background: "I was trained in piano from the age of seven and had voice training from the age of 14 till I was 21. I'm really grateful for that training, but now, it's not that I reject it, but I am using it to other things. I'm taking the eductaion and using it to do cooler things than playing other peoples music." she explains. I wonder what her uncle, famous composer Michel Legrand thinks of her work with Beach House. "I have no idea. I have no relationship with my uncle. I don't know if he's heard it or not, it makes me kinda sad." she tells me. "I have been tempted," she she says when asked if she's ever just sent him a CD, "but like, he's so rich and famous that I don't even know if he would even listen to it." There's an air of melancholy in her voice and somehow, having only spoken to her for less than five minutes, it seemed rude to push the subject any further. I turn, instead, to her relationship with Alex. "I met him through a friend, and we just hit off, we became great friends, we had very similar passions - we had a lot of things in common. It was just a natural flow. When the first record was made it was made at a very intense time of us bonding and I think something just clicked. I've been very fortunate. It's a bond that grows every day, we are really the best of friends. It's a magical thing I think." she tells me. It seems an almost rehearsed response, perhaps because so many people assume that they are more than just good friends.	"GILA" "HOUSE OF CHAMBERS" "YOU CAME TO ME"
"The relationship is a working relationship and we understand eachother. Love is something that is very intense for me. People are intense for me, I am intrigued by all of that and the mystery and the games and all that, musically it gets out somehow and he understands that and handles that very well - we are really alike - we don't even need to speak about a lot of things because we both understand it. It's just a really well oiled level of communication. It strengthens our ability to communicate ideas - it's such a good working relationship that we can just work through anything." I wonder, as a lyricist and musician which comes first for Victoria, the words or the music? "They come in different ways. Sometimes they come from the music I write, sometimes I'll hear a melody in the lyrics I write. I think about about words as symbols too; I think I tend to be abstract... I don't think they are like literal stories but I like to piece together words to kinda create strange scenarios."
"MASTER OF NONE"			"A lot of it comes from memories too - I think of songs as combinations of things - they can start from something that triggers a phrase or an emotion and then you just go there - the music starts to lead you and it goes on it's own and you let it go. It's something that comes from you, but is ultimately bigger than you. And I think that's how people find connection with it; because its not always about you, it's about everything around you that influences your life and has an effect on you." "Music is my way of experiencing life and dealing with it, and what happens to me. A lot of that goes into song."
I imagine that with that sort of intensity, that, playing live, they must get quite wrapped up, quite lost in the music? "It starts off really focussed and then when the music starts it kind goes out of focus, like it expands and becomes something else, so yeah, in performing things go out of focus because you're a vehicle, kinda like a medium to the music. When you are performing the music inhabits you and then you let that out to the people who are listening to you. It's like an energy game." But just how 'jam-my' does it get? "Oh that word gives me the creeps!" Victoria laughs, "I believe in songs having a beginning, middle and end - to keep some sort of story-structure, so it doesn't go completely out of focus into some sort of psychedelic thing. But I think the combination of sounds creates something a little wild."
		Catch Beach House's visual wild melancholy live at Bodega in Wellington on Friday 29th August and Kings Arms in Auckland on Saturday 30th. Their latest album "Devotion" is out now. Oh, and by the way, Victoria likes to eat her cheese on toast with split pea soup. www.myspace.com/beachhousemusic www.beachhousemusic.net