Best Coast - Where The Boys Are

Bethany Cosentino has her debut cassette-only EP deservedly digitalised & re-packaged for wider consumption by original visionary Sheffield label Blackest Rainbow. To tell you the truth, I personally wasn't that swayed by her hit Norman SOTW a few months back and never heard the follow up on PPM because the distro were given about 8 copies for the UK or summat. Yet I totally love the 5 tracks on here. Opening with a slow strummed 'n drowsy number that is swathed in lo-fi fuzz, echo & reverb but conjures up images of a lazy drug trip lying on balmy sands in Honolulu. Her vocals continue their blurry, distorted path on 'Space Baby', seemingly double tracked to suggest a duet in a kind of wasted close harmony. The music on this one is probably my favourite, a primitive metallic percussion clacking away beneath a rudimentary yet hugely affecting hollowed guitar chord descent! In fact I can't get these hooks out of my head as the 'tape' progresses (is this really a CD?) Amongst all the primal murk & wavering fidelity is the stuff of pop dreams, all those wonderful timeless harmonies the Vivian Girls are so great at spill, liberally from this EP too, the extraneous noise becomes a very agreeable bedfellow, so much so, I cant imagine enjoying her "better recorded" works, yet to come, quite so much! Closer 'Gloomy', for want of a better comparison, recalls prime feral PJ Harvey at her most lo-fi & yearning, perhaps not as technically flooring but totally bob on! x