Years ago when I lived in Birmingham, I remember spending hours and days painting my bedroom, with original 1950s beadboard walls and all, whilst simultaneously diving headfirst into the dream pop of Beach House. I’m not sure if it was my first foray into the genre, but the unintentional mixture of the duo’s hypnotizing beats and vocals and the slightly intoxicating paint fumes made for a chimerical combination that is probably the closest I’ll ever come to having an out-of-body experience. Fast forward a handful of years to present day, and the duo’s latest release was all but slated to be my early pick for Album of the Year. That was, until Seattle-based Lemolo came along with their debut album “The Kaleidoscope” and completely relegated Beach House to the #2 spot with an album that is all at once a profound, haunting, sublime, glistening, enchanting listen. It’s an album perfectly suited to soundtrack the summers of bronzed youth from coast to coast. Picture yourself taking an inflated tube down a lazy river, slowly winding to and fro without too many doglegged stretches of water and you have an album perfectly suited to be your guide along the way.
Lemolo, comprised of 25-year-old Meagan Grandall and 22-year-old Kendra Cox, have created quite the buzz in the Pacific Northwest, opening for indie darlings The Head and the Heart on several of their West Coast dates and at Bumbershoot and Dave Matthews Band’s Caravan Festivals. At the tail end of June, they sold out Seattle’s Columbia City Theatre for not one but two album release shows, selling out the first in a mere 11 hours. The only band to sellout the venue quicker for a debut album? Oh, just Fleet Foxes(!!). You may have heard of them. Just this past week when they officially released “The Kaleidoscope” on their website and in select stores in and around Seattle, they placed #1 on the top sellers list for Seattle’s Sonic Boom Records, outpacing Fiona Apple, Tallest Man on Earth, Jack White and The Walkmen, among others. I could go on and on about this band and how promising I believe their career is going to be, but the truth is, all you need to do is listen to them and their music will do much, much more to convince you of that than my words ever will. But be warned, once you start listening, you won’t want to wake up from this kaleidoscopic dream.
