Beck - 'The Information' (Interscope) Released 02/10/06

Three years in the making, ‘The Information’ is Beck’s ninth studio album to date and is the eagerly awaited follow up to 2005’s ‘Guero’. The record buying UK public has always had a somewhat misunderstood yet friendly relationship toward Beck and his latest release is to be no exception. As previously reported on Gigwise, ‘The Information’ has been disqualified from the UK Charts because of the packaging it comes in, or more precisely the sticker sheet included with the CD, picked by Beck himself, which fans can use to design their own covers. The Official Chart Company (OCC) has ruled that such extras give the album an unfair advantage over other competitors in the charts.

The US has always seemed to be more receptive to Beck’s music than the UK and that attitude isn’t likely to change through ‘The Information’ which promises an intergalactic kaleidoscopic exploration of stellar proportions. All you have to do is sit back and commit to fifteen energetic tracks (The UK edition also comes with two bonus tracks, bringing the total up to seventeen) of astral audio complexity. It’s not hard to get dragged willingly into Beck’s ramshackle world of genius, the opening two tracks ‘Elevator Music’ and ‘Think I’m In Love’ ease you back into the Beck we all know and rightly love. His unmistakable vocals are immediately reassuring and his music urgent and soaked in home grown early evening skiffle skunk psychobilly. So far so good and as with all good albums, ‘The Information’ is a journey, in and around Beck’s signature sound. Constantly moving, yet apparently not evolving until repeated listening reveals more and more layered sounds and more importantly deep rooted conceptual thoughts.

At times dark but never broody or moody ‘Cellphone’s Dead’ and ‘Nausea’ at others skipping and rejoicing ‘Strange Apparition’, ‘Soldier Jane’ and ‘No Complaints’. But mostly ‘The Information’ creates, holds and develops a dreamlike, futuristic, spatial state. One of welcome solitude. Of cutting ties but holding on for dear life. A freeing of the mind if you will, consisting of wind swept, abstract, drug fuelled, hallucinogenic sparseness that mixes post party electronica with industrial club infused echoes. That ‘The Information’ is a complex album is a given. Mixing genres at every twist and turn with the respect and understanding that only Beck can probably get away with, there’s enough country, krautrock, old skool hip-hop and god only knows what other vibes floating around his head to make an album that Kubrick would die for. ‘New Round’, ‘We Dance Alone’ and ‘Motorcade’ are all perfect examples of a brilliant mind and a gifted musician hard at work and rising to the top of his class, head and shoulders above the rest. Whether or not it works as an album is the real question and the answer, which won’t be immediate by any stretch of even Beck’s imagination, is likely to split hardcore and fair-weather fans alike straight down the middle.

Climaxing with the unnatural and epic (it’s over ten minutes long) ‘The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton’. To say that the track is odd is just another understatement to come out of the album, but this is Beck after all. Mixing echoes of ‘Cellphone’s Dead’ with the shipping forecast and Dave Eggers (writer) and Spike Jonze (director) talking about spaceships, ‘The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton’ is the perfect ending to a very strange album. Take what you will from the album, it’s bound to be an individual experience to all who listen to it. Either one that will be a waste of time or immensely rewarding. Maybe ‘The Information’ would make more sense if listened to intravenously. Maybe not, either way, it can all be forgiven, this is Beck after all.

To underline Beck’s artistic visions and making ‘The Information’ a visual as well as an audio treat the CD also comes with a DVD of homemade videos, one for each track, shot throughout the recording of the album.