Phantasms :: "Starboard"

Sounding a bit like the moment your daytime cold medication syncs with a too-big-to-fail cup of coffee, Phantasms unleash a buzzing and pretty single, "Starboard." The low-fi sonics prove almost too much, a sort of spinning nausea, before the chorus turns up and Sarah Atchison's lithe vocal marks the outline of a futuristic ("anachronistic" might work here too) take on the type of pop Beach House made deservedly famous. The outtro is a symphony of all these brittle Casio keyboards, marching in time to the snap of a packaged snare, a eulogy for something perhaps, a focused final movement from what felt, initially, like barely concealed cacophony. This is beauty, unconventionally framed.