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In order for Brooklyn bedroom wizard Dustin Payseur to make a pop record, he had to cut back on listening to pop music. So while there’s undoubtedly plenty of jangly, C86-like indie pop in the DNA of Payseur’s Beach Fossils, he was mostly spinning psych rock, free jazz, and krautrock at the time he recorded the project’s 2010 debut. Not shockingly, then, the most rewarding aspects of Payseur’s sepia-haze guitar pop are the textures, which gaze at the horizon but are far more contemplative than the chilled-out beach-bum bands to which Beach Fossils are often compared. The group’s latest release, the excellent What a Pleasure EP, adds some synths and Cocteau Twins drum echo, but it doesn’t feel like a violation of Beach Fossils’ lo-fi rubric. Chill, it turns out, can be a kind of intricate emotion.
Beach Fossils performs with Warm Ghost and The Silver Liners at 9:30 p.m. at Red Palace, 1212 H St. NE. $10 in advance, $12 day of show.