Beck's Morning Phase: A Review

It's always a well-anticipated celebration when a new Beck album is released. In terms of comparison, I think many of us feel the same way about a new Beck album as we do about a new Radiohead album. We are certain that we are in for a treat, and we know that we will be exploring shining new areas of musical exploration. And, once again, Beck doesn't disappoint.

It has been six years since Beck released his last album, Modern Guilt (2008). In the interval, the so-called original 90s slacker musician explored a number of other musical projects.

In 2009, he began Record Club, a project to cover an entire classic album by another artist in one day (The Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, INXS, Yanni), using an informal and fluid collective of peer musicians. The covered performances were video recorded and then posted on Beck's website.

In 2012, he released Song Reader, a work of 20 original songs presented only as sheet music, in the hopes that enterprising musicians will record their own versions. If you go on Youtube you can find various performances of each of these songs by various musicians.

He also wrote a few songs for soundtracks, collaborated with other musicians, and produced a few albums for others, most notably the Charlotte Gainsbourg's IRM (2009). Here is an album for which Beck produced, wrote every song (except one cover), played on every song, and sang on a few of them. Apart from Charlotte Gainsbourg's vocals and name and picture on the cover, what keeps this record from being considered a regular Beck album?

So what comes after a much too long gap in between records is Beck's glorious Morning Phase.

According to press releases and other promos, Morning Phase is to be considered a "companion piece" to his 2002 album Sea Change. The comparison is accurate and everyone who listens to the new work will see the affinities. As is generally known, half of Beck's oeuvre is dedicated to more acoustic-based albums (see One Foot In the Grave [1994], Mutations [1998], Sea Change [2002]) on which he often overlays lush orchestrations, dense layers, and his own distinctive sounds. Such albums are often more melodic and uniform than his alternative-hip-hop-focused work with the Dust Brothers as producers (Odelay [1996], Midnite Vultures [1999], Guero [2005]). Both Mutations and Sea Change were produced by famed Radiohead producer, Nigel Godrich.

Morning Phase falls within this acoustic-based category and includes much of the harmonies, immersive orchestrations, and the melancholic and introspective tones that were so distinctive on Sea Change.

Sea Change is a more distinctive album and is usually the album most liked by people who either do not like Beck or are suspicious of his talent. This album was a worthy successor to the surprisingly good Mutations but came jarringly after the tongue-in-cheek Midnite Vultures.

Sea Change came across as more of a concept album delving into the break-up of a relationship. The ironic lyrics of his previous albums were replaced by more sincere, simpler lyrical content. Again, a far deeper and sad Beck than we had seen before. A very sub-surface melancholy that drew inspiration from Nick Drake, Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, and Serge Gainsbourg (listen  to the strong affinities between "Paper Tiger" and Histoire de Melody Nelson).

While I do not think that the songs on Morning Phase are as strong as some of the ones on Sea Change ("The Golden Age", "Paper Tiger", "Already Dead"), the overall work is far more satisfying. There is an even stronger uniformity and thematic wholeness. This is a concept album, but one returning to semi-familiar territory.

In an article for Rolling Stone, David Fricke wrote the following about his interview with Beck:

"But Beck is loathe to use the word "sequel" to characterize Morning Phase. 'It was going back to the same place,' he says, 'and seeing where we're all at, like those Seven Up! movies, where they go back and see those people every seven years.'"

In Morning Phase, Beck is returning to the broken relationship of Sea Change to see what remains and to see if the small light still glowing has any chance of growing. He seems to want to take us on a personal, deep journey of inspecting the shipwreck of a relationship to see if anything can be salvaged, invoking strong images of water, light and turning. I'm reminded of similar tonal explorations with The Moody Blues (Days of Future Passed) and, to a lesser extent, The Who (Quadrophenia). Again, comparisons with Nick Drake, Serge Gainsbourg and 70s Bob Dylan emerge.

Not surprisingly, given this thematic material, there is far more uncertainty here than there was in Sea Change.

Here are my thoughts and analysis of the songs:

"Cycle", "Morning"

The short intro, "Cycle", followed by "Morning," open the work and immediately set the tone. "Cycle" gives us inundating waves of orchestration. It is just a short string piece, symbolic of the swell of the morning, the rise of the sun, yet again, the cycle of day and night. It soon flows into the daybreak of "Morning", a song that expresses the hope and possibility that a once shattered relationship can be revived.  The tone is that of daybreak and the first rays of light. The song itself recalls "The Golden Age", the first track of Sea Change. If that song is about realizing you need to start over (but being unable to even try), "Morning" more or less covers the same idea, but instead of looking forward at an unknown road, wondering how to get there, it looks backwards and realizes, I may have just survived (and am all the wiser for it). Those distant lights he could not locate in "The Golden Age" seem to have been found in the first lines of "Morning."

The lyrics read:

"Woke up this morning, found a love light in the storm
Looked up this morning, saw the roses full of thorns
Guns are falling, they don't have nowhere to go
Oceans of diamonds always shine, smooth out below"

These are images of morning, light, and water - images that will pervade the entire work.

"Heart is a Drum"

"Heart is a Drum" reminds me both of solo Tom Petty (Full Moon Fever, Wildflowers) and some of the more poetic moments of Adore-era Smashing Pumpkins.

The water imagery continues with lyrics such as "Everyone, if they drown from the undertow" and "'Til all my days are drowning out".

"Say Goodbye"

In his review, Will Hermes of Rolling Stone Magazine noted that "Country Down" was reminiscent of Harvest-era Neil Young. I can just barely see that, but I think the similarities are more evident here on "Say Goodbye".

"Blue Moon"

"Blue Moon" is the first single released for the album. It's a good song with more water imagery ("Songbird calling across the water") and a "turning" reference ("See the turncoat on his knees
A vagabond that no one sees"). For some reason or other, Beck has likes to use the word "vagabond" in his lyrics (also "convalescence").

There is, of course, a very famous song called "Blue Moon," one of Elvis' biggest and earliest hits. It includes the lines "Blue moon / you saw me standing alone" and clearly uses the rare event of a blue moon to symbolize the rare event of finding love. Beck uses a line or two as a jumping point for his own song ("I'm so tired of being alone").

"Blue Moon"'s music infuses the dark themes with a bit of hope, the chirpy clavinet and gorgeous vocal harmonies bringing some uplift to its lonesome lyrics. The song is about feeling trapped, and a longing to be saved.

"Unforgiven"

Rolling Stone, having heard a preview, compared the song to Gram Parsons and David Crosby.

"Wave"

The strings from "Cycle" resurface in "Wave" reinforcing the thematic unity of the work. The song has the orchestrations that reminds one of Radiohead's Kid A (no Nigel Godrich here, though) or a Bjork album. But the lyrics and wave imagery hearken back to Sea Change.

"If I surrender and I don't fight this wave/No I won't go under/I'll only get carried away".

"Don't Let It Go"

One of the three best songs on the album.

"Blackbird Chain"

"Blackbird Chain" seems to come straight out of Mutations-era Beck and naturally finds its place within the work. The music does mix different sounds into an essentially country form, including a very soulful bassline and subtle strings.

"Phase"

Another instrumental piece that continues the orchestrations from "Cycle" and "Wave".

"Turn away"

"Turn Away" continues the theme of the light that signifies the hope of a renewed relationship. Vocally, it sounds like Beck singing with himself. Personally, I found it to be too repetitious and jarring. I think it is the weakest song on the album. The orchestration is nice. Too much Simon and Garfunkle.

Lyrically, though, it fits right in with some of the light and, of course, "turning" themes of the album.

"Hold hold the light
That fixes you in time
Keeps you under
Takes you over the wall
That love divides between waking and slumber
Turn away"

"Country Down"

"Country Down" is a Dylan-esque song full of water imagery of rivers, floods, undertows, and waves. "Turning" references abound. There is also this striking lyric combining both water and "turning" images:

"All along the floodline/Waves are turning around"

It is evident that in both Sea Change and here in Morning Phase, Beck associates water imagery with relationship. It is also evident that Beck's lyrics reach out for that desire to return that relationship to its former state.

This song, along with "Blackbird Chain" and "Waking Light", came out of Beck's Nashville recording sessions for what was originally to be a  fairly traditional country album. He never was fully satisfied with the results, and ended up shelving it, but he did keep 3-4 of the songs and brought them to the Morning Phase sessions a few years later.

"Waking Light"

The album ends with another aching morning song, "Waking Light."

Rolling Stone refers to the song's "Leslie-guitar crescendo," which reminds them of George Harrison's guitar solo on "Let It Be."

I'm sure there is more to explore in this album than I've already indicated. I suspect that Beck may have also continued the "road" theme from Sea Change on this album. More exploration needed.

The title of the album is a slight pun: "Morning Phase" and "Mourning Phase". It is a time of mourning over a failed relationship but also considerations of whether return is possible and whether anything that remains can be salvaged and rebuilt.

I enjoyed almost every song on this album ("Say Goodbye", "Don't Let Go", and "Blackbird Chain" being the highlights) and found that I could listen to the entire work in one sitting and do so repeatedly. This only enhanced my appreciation for the conceptual unity of the work. The only song that I did not care much for was "Turn Away", for reasons stated above.

I think that this is probably the best Beck album since Mutations, one of my top three favorite Beck albums and once one of my top ten favorite albums until it was pushed out by Danielson's Ships (both Mellow Gold and Odelay remain in my top ten). I also think it signals that Beck has reached a new level of artistic maturity, and I look forward to what I suspect in several years will be the third part of a Sea Change-Morning Phase-X Trilogy.