Lane Change
By TIM DAVID HARVEY
Bob Dylan's 2008 album, 'Together Through Life', features album artwork of beautiful black-and-white photography by the great Bruce Davidson. Previously used for American author Larry Brown's short story collection 'Big Bad Love', the still focuses on a young couple, tangled up in each other's embrace, in the back seat of some American muscle. Together. Through. Life. No such luck for Beck, on the road again for his fifteenth album, 'Ride Lonesome', and first since 2019's Japanese 'Hyperspace' (ハイパースペース), produced by Pharrell, in-front of the classic, red Toyota Celica ("you're breaking my heart"). The longest gap between his studio sets.
Loneliness may look good on this 'Loser' singer, mind you, behind his own Dylan shades and blonde on blonde curls. The last time the man was this solitary it garnered him some Grammy's. The 'Morning Phase' of 2014, like the 'Sea Change' another dozen years before that. Twelve years later, consider 'Lonesome' the conclusion to this lonely trilogy, making for the magnum opus of this classic career and catalogue under the 'Devil's' Haircut' always on our minds. Beck has bordered genres before, from rock to rap and country to classic Americana. He's hit Bowie big ('Modern Guilt') courted a compelling canvas ('Colors') and released signature sets like 'Odelay' and 'Mutations', but nothing feels quite like this style of spacey, dreamy yet earthy Beck. Lamenting lost love and finding hope in the hallowed heartbreak. How else would you explain the clipped wings of an angelic sound that still soars to the stratosphere?
Coming off his amazing acoustic tour (we get 'Bleed' in France as a YouTube bonus), that took in here in Tokyo, and the rest of the watching world, this Capitol record is an exclamation point. Beck David Hansen told us he was working on an orchestral album after his residency at London's Royal Albert Hall. Earlier this year he already gave us the collection of covers (Elvis, Lennon etc) and rareities that was January's Valentine's Day themed 'Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime' and now he offers up this Room B, United Studios, Hollywood affair, as the wind comes through the veil of his wooden cabin, isolated home space. The lead single and title track features Sierra Ferrell, and the latest track to hit the charts is 'Disappearing Act'. Yet it's the music videos that feature the actors that really strike a chord, like Garrett Hedlund in Angus & Julia Stone's own title-track 'Karaoke Bar' off the album that was released a fortnight back.
On another lonesome day, 'In The Night' features distinctive French actor Denis Lavant, reminding you of Tom Waits. Yet from 'Tokyo!' to 'Shōgun' it's Golden Globe winner and '47 Ronin' and 'Thor' actor Tadanobu Asano who really shows the loneliness amongst the burning neon of Tokyo for the track 'Run Away'. From highlight 'For Your Love' to the black-and-white still of a 'Disappearing Act' seeping through the studio, Beck knows how to get slow, searching and sublime. All as quiet as kept, making music, not noise, in an age that wants to aggravate your attention. What Hansen says with subtlety, is held dear. The emotional texture of this set, with the same team behind 'Sea' and 'Phase', evolves into a sonic, orchestral album. The forlorn, 'Failed Words' telling us, "When the words they fail you/And truth is more than you can say/And the fear surrounds you/You can't walk away/There's no way to change it/Don't know what to say/In a total silence I saw you walk away."
A 'Slow Canyon' opens up more in its grand sense of scale. Yet 'It Ends Right Here' starts an acoustic strum that could string you along to the promise of a better future. 'Falling Through My Hands' holds onto the moment love felt special, before facing the clock made it history, like, "Time forgets what love remembers/So throw your ashes to the embers." 'If You Don't Know What Love Is', it exists in the margins here and the notebook of a great, American singer/songwriter who pens lyrics like, "Just a soldier on the line/Who's taking all the blows/No refuge from the battle in your ragged clothes/So come out from the darknеss/Sit down by the door/No one will condemn you/You don't havе to run anymore." Even mired in heartbreak, Beck sees the light and goes beyond that for the curtain ('Beyond The Light') of this dozen for a dozen. "In the praise of bеnediction/The secrеt of your name/Sends a shiver to my soul/With my heart hung out in vain/Sowing diamonds in the fallow ground/With your sacrament of ice/I've got nothing to believe/Just the distance in your eyes." There's a change at sea this morning, like a phase, and you don't have to be lonesome on this ride tonight.
Playlist Picks: 'Run Away, 'In The Night', 'For Your Love'.
Spin This: Beck - 'Morning Phase'
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