Beach House - Devotion

Devotion is the Beach House record made before anyone was watching. Released on Carpark in 2008, it arrived while Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally were still a Baltimore duo with an organ, a drum machine and a slide guitar, and it has the intimacy of a band that has not yet had to fill a room larger than a club.

The songs move at the pace of a held breath. "Gila" and "Heart Of Chambers" build on the same patient organ figures that would later carry the band to much bigger venues, but here everything sits closer to the tape. Legrand's voice is lower in the mix and lower in register than most singers would dare, and Scally's guitar lines shimmer rather than announce themselves. Their cover of Daniel Johnston's "Some Things Last A Long Time" is the emotional centre, sung with a restraint that makes it land harder than any big performance would.

Later Beach House albums are grander and better known. None of them are more affecting. Devotion is the one that sounds like it was made in a room rather than a studio.

Carpark Records repress across two LPs, spreading eleven songs over four sides for better fidelity. An early chapter that a lot of listeners work backwards to find.