Album Reviews

The opening wash of gorgeously recorded massed strings might just paralyze you. "Who arranged those? " you might say to yourself but before you could scour the liner notes you hear familiar Sea Change-like guitar strums and you melt.

Later you see on the insert the string arranging credits go to David Richard Campbell who happens to be Beck's dad and a famed and accomplished arranger with an impressive track record dating back to playing on Carole King's Tapestry album.

Beck's not broken up again as far as I know, so this album is less autobiographical and more just a successful attempt to capture a place in time and space with which we're all hopefully familiar. I mean if you haven't had your heart broken, you haven't lived.

It would be both unfair and inaccurate to call Morning Phase "son of Sea Change" because as you listen you'll hear what you think are echoes of familiar songs and even production twists from your musical listening past but good luck pinning them down to specifics as they float lazily by on a bed of Joey Waronker's very deep kick drum bass , layers of cotton candy-ish reverb, picked banjo, strummed guitars (Beck, Jason Falkner) and synth derived "plinks" and "plunks". The musician lineup is as impressive as the sheer density of the string section.

Tempi are almost dead in the water slow, while Beck's lead vocal delivery is deliberately hazy, surrounded by layers of his own gorgeous harmonies. When "Morning" the dreamy opening track gives way to "Heart Is a Drum" you'll say "Simon and Garfunkel! No, Nick Drake! No, what's his name, no that's not it, what is that?" Not that Beck literally quotes anyone. The stuff is in his musical DNA.

After a few tracks a certain sameness sets in as you acclimate to the tempi and Beck's chordal game plan but that quickly gives way to the endless flow of warmth and comfort even if the analytical side of your brain has kicked in and you try to analyze rather than just absorb the insistent sonic pleasure.

When it's all over you'll be impressed by the experience though not a single track will likely have registered. Play it again and you'll leave equally gratified, perhaps mystified by the lack of substance and your eagerness not to care because your sonic pleasure zones have been so effectively massaged. The coherent whole is far greater than the parts, but over time the songs do register and separate out.

Beck's Morning Phase tweaks the noses of "the album is dead" proponents and shoves sonic glory in the ears of the slopmeisters of sound. It could be argued that an album like this succeeds or fails on its sound. It's as much if not more a "listening experience" than a collection of memorable tunes and as a "listening experience" that's consistent throughout, deeply setting mood and tone, it 100% succeeds.

You can be sure Beck knows that since he's produced consistently great sounding records throughout his career. Regardless of how this was tracked, analog or digital, the studio trail tells the tale: Ocean Way (L.A. and Nashville), Blackbird, Nashville, Rak Studios London, Sunset Sound, Capitol, L.A. etc. with mixing at Electric Lady in New York.

Bob Ludwig mastered in Maine, Bernie Grundman cut lacquers in California and Pallas pressed in Germany. This definitely was not one of those "cut from the CD, press as cheaply as possible and get it out the door" kind of vinyl production. The sound is superb and Ludwig, Grundman and of course Beck were not afraid to put a lot of bass energy into the grooves. If this sounds "thumpy" or "thuddy" to you, it's your equipment not the recording or record.

Play this back to back with Sea Change and you might become paralyzed with pleasure, loving every minute of it!

(Video courtesy Furnace MFG)