New band of the day – No 677: Best Coast (original) (raw)

Hometown: Los Angeles.

The lineup: Bethany Cosentino (vocals, guitar).

The background: Best Coast sounds like a lo-fi 60s garage rock and surfing band fronted by a girl group singer, but it is in fact essentially a vehicle for Bethany Cosentino, a 22-year-old from LA who is, as far as we can tell, the sole female auteur of the whole new sun-kissed surf-pop scene – a scratchier and more trad-rocky sound than the associated, lusher one currently termed "chillwave" (Neon Indian, Washed Out, Memory Tapes et al). Despite her youth, Cosentino has already had quite a varied career. After being a "show baby" who performed at zillions of talent competitions, she got into California punk and began her first solo project Bethany Sharayah, a noise outfit that didn't really suit the "sappy love songs" she was then writing to ease her broken heart following her first affair. She also sang backing vocals for a British singer-songwriter on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was even being groomed for stardom as a glossy mainstream popette when she was 16. Instead, she formed Pocahaunted, a band who rejected noise for a "mellow and dreamy" sound that reflected her obsession with the Cocteau Twins and the unearthly melodies of Elizabeth Fraser. Their highpoint came in summer 2007 when they were invited to support Sonic Youth in Berkeley.

Now she's the heart and soul of Best Coast, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that here she's combining the yin and yang of her first two bands for a noise-pop match made in heaven. As with La Roux, there are Shadowy Male Figures In The Background (take a bow, Bobb Bruno) who play some of the instruments and help out live, but Cosentino does the interviews and photoshoots. She is also the one responsible for the gorgeously muffled vocals and all those sunny yet sorrowful tales of boys and break-ups with titles such as So Gone, Make You Mine, Wish He Was You and When I'm With You, which sound like entries ripped from a 60s teen girl's diary.

Cosentino does have an agenda apart from guy-worship – Cali adoration. After a year living in New York, she got so homesick she became determined to put her feelings about her home city into song and turn Best Coast's music into one long love letter to LA. So when she's not getting stoned and watching Seinfeld on DVD (Elaine Benes is her all-time heroine), or working in a handmade cosmetics store called Lush, she's penning paeans to Pacific Palisades and environs. "When I was in New York I would walk to the train in the morning through the snow listening to Brian Wilson sing about California, and it made me happy. So I decided that I wanted to make music that reflected that happiness," she says. "I wanted to tell the world how obsessed I am with California." Job done, basically.

The buzz: "Pure flippin' genius."

The truth: If you fancy the idea of the Standells having a beach party with the Shangri-La's, then surf's up, dude.

Most likely to: Smell of seaweed soap and face products made of chocolate.

Least likely to: Set up a stall at the Smell.

What to buy: When I'm With You and This Is Real are now on iTunes. A self-titled seven-inch was released on the Black Iris label this week.

File next to: the Mary Chain, Girls, the Drums, Vivian Girls.

Links: myspace.com/bestycoasty

Tomorrow's new band: Monarchy.