BECK - "Colors"
BECK
“Colors”
Capitol Records - October 13, 2017
I discovered a new single released last week called “Chain Reaction" where Joy Downer is joined by Beck and it reminded me of “Colors.” The opening title track immediately notifies listeners that for all of all his chameleonic musical choices the eternally youthful Mr. Hansen will always maintain an expertise with beats and a pop sensibility that belies the folk/hip hop persona that first defined him. He and producer, Greg Kerwin, are basically the entire team behind this effort, his 13th studio full-length, and it’s a wonderfully diverse collection of Beck working like an efficient and innovative chef in a kitchen he’s stocked with every spice he’s encountered in a lifetime’s worth of cooking his own nouveau musical cuisine (check the piano that melts into a riffy guitar on “Dear Life”). Throughout, his knack for turning a new fangled phrase never fails him and “Up All Night” should be your warm-weather late-night banger this summer. Side note: Beck enthusiasts are encouraged to do a little online digging for “Record Club,” an unreleased project where he covers favorite records like “The Velvet Underground & Nico,” and INXS’s “Kick” in a single day with an ad hoc assemblage of friends who in the past has included members of MGMT, Wilco, and Tortoise. It always surprises me how few people know about this.
Standouts: “Colors,” “I’m So Free,” “Dreams (Explicit).”
