Events

[INDIE] Best Coast is really shorthand for west coast, a reference to the sunny musical spirit at the California duo’s core. Their 2010 debut Crazy For You was an unexpected indie hit, penetrating the Billboard 200 and selling 10,000 copies upon its initial release. Sounding something like Lana Del Rey fronting a lo-fi garage band, the blend of bright melodies with lyrics that revel in ennui, confusion, and uncertainty has become Best Coast’s stock in trade. Last year’s California Nights (Harvest) largely sticks with the same formula that caused the initial buzz despite some sanded edges and a more pronounced production value. The good news is that the true spirit of what Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno get up to creatively didn’t get killed off in the process. California Nights boasts a heavier bottom end than any previous releases, creating the illusion of a larger band and a bigger sound, but Best Coast remains a duo. The album explores the underbelly of the Los Angeles social scene, calling the fake sunny exterior out on the carpet while indulging deep pockets of melody and pleasing bits of girl group panache. With them for their gig Sunday, August 7 at Tralf Music Hall is Brooklyn’s Sunflower Bean, whose full length debut for Fat Possum, Human Ceremony, presents an intriguing flipside to Best Coast’s M.O. Also female-fronted and equally obsessed with the 1960s and a sense of ennui, Sunflower Bean opts for a musical blend of psychedelia and jangle-pop that takes more of a thinking-person’s approach to overcoming clichéd misery (rather than just writing catchy snark about it, which Best Coast is so good at). Human Ceremony is an amazingly accomplished and cohesive sounding album for a debut—the marvels of modern recording, or actual creative chemistry? You be the judge.