Breaking Artist: Beach House

Who: Baltimore duo Beach House, comprised of vocalist Victoria Legrand and keyboardist Alex Scally, who create atmospheric dream pop that serves as an auditory escape from the rough Baltimore streets portrayed in The Wire.

Sounds Like: A pastoral mix of Mazzy Star, Yo La Tango and Phil Spector-bred girl groups. On their sophomore album Devotion, the duo creates dreamlike songs using Scally's army of vintage keyboards and Legrand's atmospheric coo and stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

Vital Stats:

• Legrand's uncle is the great French film composer Michel Legrand, who scored films by Jean-Luc Godard (A Woman is a Woman, Band of Outsiders) and was nominated for Academy Awards for scoring The Thomas Crown Affair and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

• Avoiding the White Stripes route of band relations, the duo is admittedly not romantically-involved. Legrand has a boyfriend, while Scally dates a chef on the Food Network's Ace of Cakes.

• The band is a product of Baltimore's exploding indie-rock movement. After the center of renaissance is the Wham City artist collective, which boasts CMJ favorite Dan Deacon as its poster child.

Hear It Now: Devotion hits shelves in CD stores and digital music services on February 28th. In the meantime, check out their video for "Master of None," off their self-titled debut album.

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Song Stories

“Helen Wheels”

Paul McCartney | 1973

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"

More Song Stories entries »

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