Melbourne-based Beaches received acclaim at home when their self-titled 2008 debut was shortlisted for Oz’s prestigious Australian Music Prize-- rubbing shoulders with Oceania indie rock A-listers like Cut Copy, the Presets and the Drones-- and got included in the 2010 compendium/compilation 100 Best Australian Albums to boot. Beaches was born out of casual jam sessions between friends who were between bands and never really thought they’d get any attention with the project. Their songs are simultaneously dense and amorphous, and often named for opaquely vast signifiers-- their 2008 debut included cryptic monoliths “Horizon”, “Eternal Sphere”, and “Vikings”-- and the music follows suit. Occasional flashes of saccharine girl-group melodies and the Ramones' glue-sniffing simplicity are usually warped and distorted into sprawling, phantasmagoric psych rock suites, almost always built atop a metronomic krautrock drive.
It makes sense that for She Beats (released on the esteemed Australian Guy Blackman-run label Chapter Music) they've enlisted Michael Rother of Neu!, Kraftwerk, Harmonia, and Cluster (who became smitten with Beaches after crossing paths at the 2009 Melbourne iteration of All Tomorrow’s Parties) to record two tracks, lending the whole project his krautrock seal of approval. The result is a dusty, sun-bleached collection of loose-fitting psychedelic noise/prog that pulses with unnerving Teutonic precision. The hazy, 60s pop still makes disaffected appearances (the band members switch vocal duties but their uniformly slurred intonation leaves their identities fluid), but there appears to be a larger focus on corralling their distortion-drenched, loopy guitar work into something approaching Thurston Moore’s barely contained squall.
First track “Out of Mind” pretty much sets every influence Beaches has out on the table for a deceptively complex guitar epic. Between Allison Bolger and Ali McCann on dueling rhythm guitar, and Antonia Sellbach on lead, there are enough memorable riffs for four songs here, exploring garage rock, psych, and solos half-nabbed from “Teen Age Riot”. It’s arguably the best composed song on the album, stitched together with an eye for build and release that belies the meandering jam sessions that birthed this band. Though the lesser tracks-- like the Quicksilver-cribbing “Keep on Breaking Through” and the Eastern-influenced “Veda”-- are marred by indecsision, coming off as extended interludes rather than song-songs*.*
The Rother-featured pairing of “Distance” and “Granite Snake”, however, expertly display the group's strengths in a way that feels loose, exciting, and dynamic; “Distance” in particular is mesmerizing in the way it melds the group’s shoegazing tendencies, soloing abilities, and ambient pop vocals, with the lockstep of drummer Karla Way driving a song that comes off focused rather than repetitive; each guitar riff and subsequent key change seems like a revelation. “Granite Snake” is a masterclass facsimile of the sound Rother has become known for, with bassist Gill Tucker’s grimey riff used to build a rich tapestry of zooming guitars.
She Beats ebbs and flows in strangely sinister formations, sustaining a woozy unease that's hard to pin down. The record's most thrilling moments occur when Beaches force the demarcation between the diamond sharp rhythm section and the improvisational flourishes of the guitar work to slowly dissolve with measured control, revealing weird hypnotic depths forged from the group's established, and seemingly limitless, chemistry.
