Beach House

With their first three albums, Beach House — Maryland duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally — have put together a tapestry of interlocking pop styles that fall somewhere on the Venn diagram containing sub-sets labelled dreamy, baroque and ethereal. He concentrates on guitars and keys, she sounds a bit like Nico, and the overall result is never less than enchanting. The woozy flourishes on 2009 single "Norway" take us into weirdly refracted sonic realms, "Saltwater" from 2006's self-titled debut album works as a warm antidote to the effects of gravity, and "Home Again" from middle album Devotion perfects what we might call the mermaid effect: follow too closely and you may end up, dazed and mesmerized, in a watery snare. Currently on Sub Pop, Beach House promises only to enhance its strange beauty as the years ahead unfold.