APPLE ORCHARD
Beach House
Beach House
Carpark : 2006
[Pre-order it]

I'm not complaining, mind you -- but god, is my life ever hectic. While I love working for Pitchfork, it doesn't do anything to alleviate the fast pace -- we update daily, so there's no break from grinding out copy (I shouldn't make it sound so mechanical, though of course it occasionally is). And not only are we expected to keep up with the ever-accelerating march of popular culture, we're expected to know about it before anyone else; preferably, before the music has even been recorded; ideally, before the artist has even conceptualized the project. Add to this the slower-paced but still time consuming work I do for the local weekly (for which I've gotta whip out 1200 words today) and for Paste (for which I've gotta whip up a page on the new Rapture record tomorrow), my mp3 blogging duties (first Alex's compliment-fishing, now a guilt trip -- Moistworks is a cruel master), various poetic and sound projects, and the fact that I seem constitutionally unable to survive a week without staying up until dawn making stuff with my friends at least once or twice, and you get the picture -- my plate's so full that I don't even remember what the plate itself looks like. This week in particular, if it wasn't so politically incorrect, I'd have to characterize as "retarded" -- massive amounts of copy to write and emails to send and message boards to post and laundary to wash before I head to New York for what will probably be a weekend of severe glandular depletion. Your life's probably just the same, and like me, you probably sometimes use music as an escape, a respite, or a buffer for all the stress. My occasional predicament is that, music being my "work", it becomes difficult to use music to get away from work. When I need musical relief, I tend to attract to the dreamiest, most retiring music I can find, and to this end (also dedicated to my friends, who are going to pick me up at the airport when I return to NC on Monday and whisk me directly to the coast, for 24 hours of decompression), I offer you Beach House's "Apple Orchard", which sounds like the dreamier parts of the new Yo La Tengo record with Vaseline smeared on it (I hate to be that guy, but I've heard the new Yo La Tengo, and while I'm not at liberty to share it just now, you should know that it's a monster). I've got to hop on that copy, but first, let's all take a break for a minute -- pour some tea, raise the blinds, close Gmail and AIM -- and chill out to some Beach House.