Archive for the ‘Releases’ Category

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Upcoming Works

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Hi, Beck freaks. Every once in awhile, I like to summarize the upcoming releases and news. As I’ve said on here before, we’re not really a news blog in a normal way, but like to keep you up with everything (and especially the things, say, Pitchfork may not know about).

The last couple of years, we know Beck has been extremely busy. And since there’s been no shows, that means lots of records! While there’s nothing concrete about any new Beck albums, there are a lot of upcoming things to look forward to. In no particular order:

1. Jamie Lidell Compass: A few years ago, Jamie opened a tour for Beck, and they’ve done some unreleased tracks together (and Record Club 3). When he was starting his new album, Beck called and asked if he needed production help, and they spent a number of sessions working on tracks. The album is done, will be released on May 18, and Beck is on about half the tracks (producing, writing, playing instruments).

2. Tobacco Maniac Meat: The lead guy of the cool electro group, Black Moth Super Rainbow, has a few solo albums. His new one is out on May 25, and Beck added vocals and lyrics to two tracks: “Fresh Hex” and “Grape Aerosmith.” Here’s a story about the collaboration.

3. Scott Pilgrim soundtrack: A movie is being made of the comic/graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim. I haven’t read it, but it concerns a lot of bands. Beck has provided the music for one of the bands, apparently recording a ton of two-man garage band rock tracks with Brian LeBarton for it. The movie is out in the summer, not sure what’s planned for the soundtrack, which was compiled by Nigel Godrich.

4. “Life During Wartime”: Beck and Devendra Banhart perform the title track to the upcoming Todd Solandz film, Life During Wartime. (It is not the Talking Heads classic of the same name.)

5. Record Club 4: The great third Record Club just finished, and beck.com says that the fourth will return in a couple of weeks (and with “big surprises”). Keep checking Beck.com for that!

6. John Martyn tribute album: Beck has covered John Martyn in the past, in the early 2000s, he used to do “Go Easy” live on occasion. Martyn unfortunately died last year, and Beck is giving a version of “Stormbringer” to an upcoming tribute album. He recorded this in Nashville a few years ago, when he and his band stopped in and did a bunch of covers (he put a Lee Hazlewood cover up on beck.com once from this sessoin). I have no other info about when the album will be released.

7. The full cover of Sonic Youth’s album, Evol seems to have been forgotten. I wonder what happened to this? Last April, a vinyl single came out from it (”Green Light”), but nothing else has been mentioned since. Some reports said it was to be on cassette only. Where is this, I’m dying to hear it!

8. Beck was in the studio recording last November or so, according to beck.com. No mention on what exactly.

Those are the ones worth mentioning–there’s other old recordings that seem to have just been for fun (direct-to-vinyl studio experiments and stuff), and are probably long-gone.

If anyone hears anything else, or recalls anything I’ve forgotten, let us know!

UPDATE: Thanks Scott, I don’t know how I forgot about this! About a year ago, we got a free mp3 saying it was from the lost 2nd K Records album, and a promise that more was coming. This hasn’t happened yet, and nothing else has been heard from it or of it! How frustrating.

Posted in Beck, Brian Lebarton, Evol, Jamie Lidell, News, Nigel Godrich, Releases, beck.com | 2 Comments »

Compass Spinning Like A Gambling Wheel

Monday, February 8th, 2010

So hot on the heels of Beck’s collaboration with Charlotte Gainsbourg comes today’s news that he appears on the upcoming album, Compass by Jamie Lidell.

Lidell, of course, is on the current third Record Club, which should be wrapping up soon (there’s one track left on the album, unless they did some of the CD bonus tracks). I’m told there will be a fourth Record Club, but have no idea who is on it or what they covered. I have some theories based on who was in Los Angeles 6 months ago, but we’ll wait and see. :)

Lidell first entered Beck’s circle when he opened one of the Information tours. Lidell would often play with the band, as well as doing sets with them in spontaneous bar shows. Since then, the two have recorded together occasionally (we know about this and this but both are unreleased). Nothing had been released until Record Club 3. Also appearing on Compass is Brian LeBarton, James Gadson, Feist, and Nikka Costa (who is married to Wounded Cougar guitarist, Justin Stanley, so I’m hoping more WuCu is on there too).

UPDATE: A couple of hours after I wrote this, Beck.com notes a bit more about what his involvement was with this record: “Beck worked last year with singer Jamie Lidell on his new forthcoming album The Compass. He produced, recorded and co-wrote songs, as well as performed on several others. Sessions began early last year and continued in the summer. The album will be out in May but you can hear the first song “The Compass,” which was recorded by Beck at Oceanway Studios (where Sea Change and Mutations were done) and features him on acoustic guitar and percussion. “

Posted in Beck, Brian Lebarton, Jamie Lidell, Record Club, Releases | No Comments »

Harry Partch

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

So earlier this year, Radiohead released a song called “Harry Patch (In Memory Of).” It was only sold online, and was about the last surviving British veteran of World War I. Then earlier this month, the dude from the Fiery Furnaces went on an anti-Radiohead rant, which included some nonsense about how stupid it was they wrote a song about Harry Partch. Partch is an experimental composer and musician. He concluded his rant by saying “I’d make fun of Beck too, but I’m afraid of Scientologists.” All for press right? But since nobody gives a shit about the Fiery Furnaces and their lame novelty albums, everyone promptly ignored it. Except Beck, who is showing them who rules around here. He apparently wrote a song about Harry Partch and it will be on beck.com later today. Cool!

Posted in Beck, Releases | 2 Comments »

Charlotte Gainsbourg MRI

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

The album that Beck produced and cowrote with Charlotte Gainsbourg is called MRI and will be out on November 30. The first single is out in September, called “Master Hand” (or maybe “Master Hands”). Another single, “Heaven Can Wait” is a duet with Beck, and a video was shot for it last week in LA. Other tracks on the album include “In The End” and (maybe) “Paradisco.”

Posted in Beck, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Releases | 1 Comment »

Upcoming Musics

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

A summary, in no particular order:

1. Record Club continues. After the VU & Nico album, it is unclear what is next. There are two Record Clubs recorded–one with MGMT and Devendra and the guy from Wolfmother (not clear what album, one report said Talking Heads) and Skip Spence’s Oar album with Wilco. (The VU & Nico tracks come out weekly, so far on Thursdays. Though “All Tomorrow’s Parties” got out a few days early.)

2. Modern Guilt Acoustic – over on beck.com/videotheque there is an acoustic run-through of the whole album. This was recorded with the live band after the last tour (Brian, Bram, Jessica & Joey). (Tracks are uploaded one a week, so far on weekends — Sat or Sun.)

3. Charlotte Gainsbourg album – supposedly out at the end of this year, Beck wrote and produced much of her record. Tracks may include “Paradisco.”

4. Scott Pilgrim soundtrack – Beck recorded a few songs for the soundtrack to this movie, as apparently the band Sex Bob-omb. Tracks may include “Indefatigable.”

5. Sonic Youth’s EVOL – similar to record club, but for SY. They needed something for some project they’re doing; Beck recorded all of EVOL with his band for it. No idea when it’s going to be released

6. some song with Devendra Banhart for some soundtrack. (Beck mentioned this vaguely in a recent Pitchfork interview).

7. also in the Pitchfork interview Beck mentioned that he has another album knocking around that was started before Modern Guilt.

8. the second K Records release… more info on this was promised a few months back, but nothing new about it yet.

These are the main things that I believe are upcoming and the most recent. There’s a few other things that I think are a bit older and maybe lost to time (his straight-to-vinyl records with Jamie Lidell, etc.), but who knows. Lots of things happening, it’s a fun time to be a Beck fan.

Posted in Beck, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Modern Guilt, Record Club, Releases, beck.com | 4 Comments »

2nd K Record — Coming Soon?

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Hello,

Just a quick update regarding an email I got from beck.com regarding my order for OFITG expanded. The email includes an unreleased song (recorded at Dub Narcotic) called “The Way it Seems” as a thanks for ordering AND GET THIS that more details are coming on the “unreleased follow up to OFITG.” The attached mp3 is fully tagged including album specified as “K records 2.” Full email is included below, stay tuned for more details as they come in.

- breathmint

Thank you for picking up the expanded edition of One Foot In the Grave. This reissue has been several years in the making—-tracking down tapes, photographs and mixing the lost songs on the 8 equipment they were originally recorded on. As an added bonus we are sending you an extra song not available anywhere else from the the unreleased follow up to One Foot In the Grave recorded in the summer of 1994 at Dub Narcotic Studios, of which there will be more about later. We’re also working on some surprises for the website which we hope we’ll be able to bring to you soon.

Thanks again.

Beck

EDIT: i wanted to add a little bit about what we know about this, the long-lost Second K Record. Beck recorded One Foot up in Olympia for K in summer 1993, as well as a bit for it in January 1994. He released the album in June 1994. Then in July 1994, he was back up there for a couple of weeks on a short break from Mellow Gold touring, and recorded the follow-up. I was under impression these sessions were aborted, and not finished, but now it seems there is a full album’s worth ready to go. Old Beck.com Disko had listed 3 songs from the “2nd K Release”: “Buried Alive,” “Cold Brains,” and “Somewhere Far Along.” There were a ton of unreleased songs played over the remainder of 1994 and in to 1995, so I’d think any of those songs may show up here. (And some, like “Cold Brains,” could very likely have shown up on Mutations.) Like Mint said, stay tuned. – almostaghost

PS. I changed the title of this post, because really it has little to do with One Foot In The Grave deluxe! It is its own new thing.

Posted in Beck, K Records, One Foot In The Grave, Releases, beck.com | 15 Comments »

New Details on Beck / Sonic Youth RSD 7″

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

In a recent Matador blog post, there seems to be a hint that the aformentioned Beck / Sonic Youth split 7″ may be released in several different colors, each being split amongst the 2500 total copies. If this is the case, it may make finding each color very difficult given the highly limited nature of this release. We will continue to bring you details as they emerge.

UPDATE

It has been confirmed via the above Matador blog, that there will be an ultra limited amount of colored 7″s distributed randomly around the nation. The colored versions will be individually numbered (inside the sleeve). So if you can… buy two to increase your chances! ;) Happy hunting

- breathmint

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Posted in Beck, Evol, News, Releases, Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore | 8 Comments »

Beck covers Sonic Youth’s EVOL in its entirety

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

Last November, Beck and his band covered on stage, “Star Power.” This is a Sonic Youth song from their album EVOL. A few months later, it was announced that Beck was releasing a cover of “Green Light,” which is also from EVOL. That release was a single, the b-side being a Sonic Youth cover of “Pay No Mind” no less!

What does all this EVOLness mean? We learned today, thanks to our friends in Japan, that Beck has covered the whole album. He said this in an interview/article with a Japanese magazine. I’m told it will be part of some Sonic Youth box set. I know SY has been releasing Deluxe versions of their albums, so maybe EVOL Deluxe? Or maybe some greater box set project?

Regardless, this is super interesting and really a fun thing for Beck to have done!

Posted in Beck, Evol, Releases, Sonic Youth | 5 Comments »

Deluxe Albums

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

On the tail of Odeluxe which was pretty cool, though didn’t quite meet the promise (original version of “Debra”? Hello? Where’d that go?), I’d heard rumor of a few other deluxes too. And it appears two are on their way:

http://www.vibe-net.com/news/?news=0037003

First we got MoGuLuxe, which doesn’t appear to have any new music, just new packaging and some videos? Probably some b-sides too I guess. But even more exciting is, One Foot Deluxe, fully expanded to over 30 tracks!

No tracklist yet, but it seems very possible to me that this will include the legendary recordings for the Second K Album Which Never Happened… songs like “Piss On The Door” and “Mattress“. I know that Beck.com had listened and put the lyrics to 4-5 of those songs up a few years ago, so Beck must have them somewhere. Other than those, I’d imagine the It’s All In Your Mind single is a must, and maybe a few of his other loose tracks too.

*fingers crossed*

Posted in Beck, One Foot In The Grave, Releases | 10 Comments »

Beck / Sonic Youth Split 7″ (Covering Each Other)

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

In celebration of the 2nd annual record store day, Matador is offering three new records in limited edition runs of 2500, and lucky for us one of them is a split 7″ with Beck and Sonic Youth, respectively performing covers of one another.

OLE-865-7    Sonic Youth – “Pay No Mind” (Beck cover)  b/w  Beck - “Green Light”  (Sonic Youth cover) 7″

Details: http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/02/02/coming-april-18-matador-sonic-youth-jay-reatard-pavement-beck-wanna-know-why-cant-every-day-be-record-store-day/

Thanks for the tip delta!

- breathmint

UPDATE: added link to DiscoQ

UPDATE: New Details?

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Posted in News, Releases | 6 Comments »

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