Originally formed in 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland, Beach House is an American dream pop duo consisting of French-born Victoria Legrand (vocals, keyboards) and Baltimore native Alex Scally (guitar).

We had numerous sessions about what we should call ourselves. It was pretty funny. We tried to describe all these otherworldly-type things, things that would reflect the way we sounded. And there was mention of a beach party on the moon. We already had a song called “House on the Hill,” and basically it just came out one day: Beach House. Why not just name it this? I think we were lucky.

– Victoria Legrand, Vassar

Despite their summery name, Beach House creates music that is dark, dreamy, and alluringly hypnotic. In a 2018 interview with LiveAbout, Scally summarized their music as following:

I think that’s very much what the ‘beach house’ feel is: going off to a different world. It’s not really a vacation; vacation for me is when you go away, but you’re still thinking about all the things you’ve left behind.

Their self-titled debut released in early October 2006 via Carpark Records, the same label who also distributed 2008’s Devotion. Since 2010’s Teen Dream, Beach House has been signed to Sub Pop Records.