MICHAEL BEACH STORE
Digital downloads for the products below can be purchased from Beach's Bandcamp page.
HARDGOODS
Cassette $8, DL $5Early 2011 saw the release of the Michael Beach 7-inch, “A Horse," which was received with glowing reviews. Since then, Beach has been busy touring Europe and Australia and recording his follow-up. For this latest collection of songs, Beach assembled an all-star cast of West Coast musicians, including drummer Utrillo Kushner (Comets On Fire, Colossal Yes) and Raymond Raposa (Castanets) on guitar and vocals. Recorded by Trans Am’s Phil Manley, Mountains + Valleys has the same familiar feeling of intimacy on previous Michael Beach releases, mixed with an intensity reminiscent of early Sonic Youth and Sebadoh tunes. This one sees its release as a limited-edition cassette (100) and digital download on Twin Lakes/Spectacular Commodity. Grab it in either format here.
Vinyl 7" $6A follow-up to debut album Blood Courses, which Australian tastemaker MessandNoise.com described as “timeless,” Michael Beach’s first single since relocating to San Francisco from Australia, "A Horse" is a clear display of the versatility he has become known for after multiple releases with Melbourne’s Electric Jellyfish (Ecstatic Yod/Twin Lakes). In the first sessions for his sophomore album, Beach brought together friend and co-producer Raymond Raposa (Castanets) and engineer Seth Lorinczi (Corin Tucker Band, Golden Bears) at Seth’s Little Golden Book Studio in Portland, Oregon. With this two-song treasure, Beach engages all of the emotions of a man exiled from his adopted home to further push his reputation as an honest and confrontational songwriter.
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Vinyl 12" $15
Blood Courses is the debut album from Michael Beach. It is a haunting exploration of life, death, beauty, and darkness that unfolds as much as the listener allows it. The California-born, then Melbourne-based songwriter sought to replicate his intense live shows by focusing on sparse instrumentation and the use of tension and space. Recorded entirely analog at Heap Gap Studios in Melbourne, and mastered by Adam Dempsey at Deluxe Mastering, the album faithfully represents both of these things.
From MessandNoise.com:
“Somehow these songs seem to exist outside the framework of popular music, their structures both classic and completely individual. As such, Blood Courses is an album that will hopefully be regarded as a fully realised work long after its contemporaries have faded from memory. It avoids the pitfalls of genre, fashion and commercial considerations so successfully, I’m tempted to call it timeless.”