Welcome to "Nothing Not New," a yearlong project in which New Times editorial operations manager Jay Bennett, a 40-year-old music fan and musician, will listen only to music released in 2010. Each Monday through Friday, he will listen to one new record (no best ofs, reissues, or concert recordings) and write about it. Why? Because in the words of his editor, Martin Cizmar, he suffers from "aesthetic atrophy," a wasting away of one's ability to embrace new and different music as one ages. Read more about this all-too-common ailment here.
You know you've let yourself get of touch with things when you put into your CD player a new Sub Pop release -- in this case, the new release by Beach House -- and out of your speakers comes some mellifluous, honey-dripped sounds that instantly transplant you to a summery place in your head. Now, I know (though, it's hard to believe) it's been 22 years since the Seattle label put out the "Touch Me I'm Sick" single and I figured Sub Pop had moved away from its punk and grunge roots, but . . . Beach House? This is what the venerable label that was so important to me in my teens and early 20s is doing now?
