Album Review: Béisbol - Lo-Fi Cocaine

Two years ago, brothers Jeff and Ryan Burian moved up north from Hemet, Calif. to Portland. Like many young musicians, the City of Roses appealed to the SoCal natives because of its booming, anything goes music scene. And after listening to the duo’s debut full-length under the moniker Béisbol, it sounds like they’re fitting in just fine.

Lo-Fi Cocaine is a collection of everything that inspired and influenced the brothers Burian, who have been playing music together since elementary school. The album begins with “Big Folk,” a wavy, surf-guitar driven instrumental track laden with layered electronics. From there, Béisbol experiments with a range of musical genres. Its latest single, “Nothing Strange,” plays with the popular contemporary sound of weightless, hazy, space pop while its first single, “That Feeling,” pays homage to funky disco-tinged bass lines and airy, ironically outdated synth solos. As the album progresses, hints of ‘80s pop (think Talking Heads) mesh with anthemic indie pop choruses in “Dead Beats,” and the brothers dabble in R&B stylized singing with “Taking It All (Easy),” before closing out with “Is It Over,” a woozy, relaxing slow jam.

Though Béisbol covers a lot of ground in the ten songs that comprise Lo-Fi Cocaine, there is one common thread that weaves the songs together: Pop. No matter what song you play on the record, it’s guaranteed to possess a saccharine sweet melody, catchy synth riff and sing-along chorus. It can be difficult to successfully incorporate such an array of influences, and the Burians not only succeeded, they were able to fuze these genres together to create something completely new. And maybe most impressive of all, they did it all by themselves.

The brothers wrote and performed everything on the album in the span of fourth months at Family Farm studios in Lake Oswego, Oregon, tediously laying down each track themselves. Considering the depth and complexity of both the record’s vocal and instrumental arrangements, it’s clear these guys know what they’re doing. It will be exciting to hear what they conjure up next.