Got a newsletter from Beck’s old keyboardist, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Manthing / Malibu / Shotgun), via his website.  He mentioned some very cool recordings he did with Beck, co-starring Roger’s Jellyfish bandmate, Jason Falkner (who is on Sea Change and Info) and a few others.  Here’s what he wrote:

The most recent and biggest surprise of late was getting a call from Beck recently to help do some “direct to disc” recording. Those invited to help out were, Justin, Jason Falkner and special guests Jamie Lidell and Mocky. Direct to disc recording involves all of the musicians performing simultaneously (no overdubbing) live in a studio environment. The audio signal is then sent to an antiquated machine that literally cuts the signal onto vinyl instantly there on the spot. The objective being and incredibly enhanced recording signal and sound quality not to mention the “live” element of the performance being captured. In other words, no second takes for the musicians. Get it right and get it right now! Needless to say this was a new and exhilarating challenge that we all welcomed. It really forced some interesting spontaneity to emerge from this great ensemble of musicians. No word yet as to how Beck plans on using the material garnered from these dates.

In another recent interview while in Australia, it was reported that Beck “shelved his idea of an album of two-minute pop songs to highlight society’s ever-dwindling attention span for a project of “more inconvenience”.” Beck explained, “It’s almost a reaction against everything having to be so pocket-sized, quick and easy and downloadable.  It makes me want to make something that doesn’t fit in through the front door, that you have to break a wall to get into the house.”

But then, Beck also told the Japan Times he wanted to do a Elliott-Smith-style-acoustic album too.

Tracklist:

1. Elevator Music

2. Think I’m In Love

3. Cell Phone’s Dead

4. Nausea

5. Soldier Jane

6. Strange Apparition

7. Dark Star

8. Movie Theme

9. We Dance Alone

10. No Complaints

11. 1000 BPM

12. Motorcade

13. The Information

14. New Round

15. Horrible Fanfare / Landslide / Exoskeleton

Beck’s new album is to be called The Information. It is set to released on October 2.

We don’t have a full track list for the album yet, but this is what we know:

1. “Cell Phone’s Dead” – first single, video by Michel Gondry

2. “Think I’m In Love” – a lo-fi video directed by Beck and Nigel Godrich popped up on youtube and beck.com shortly

3. “Nausea” – Beck gave the song to some skateboarding documentary to use in their trailer, a real video is coming too

4. “The Information” – since this is the name of the album, I guess that increases the chance it will be on the album (though it’s certainly possible it won’t be)

5. “Movie Theme” – Beck said on stage in June this was “from the new album,” for what that’s worth

6. “Soldier Jane” – same as #5

Those are closest things we have to certain guesses so far, I think. All the other songs he’s played live which he could choose from to end up on the album are “1000 BPM,” “Elevator Music,” “Time Bomb,” and “Landslide.” He could also reach back to his 2005 songs like “One, Two,” “Remain In The Dark,” or “We Dance Alone.” Beck also mentioned “The Girl From RIP-anema” as being from the album, but he said it so long ago and we haven’t heard of it again.

UPDATE: I wrote some of that too soon.  MTV has an article which indicates that videos are about for “1000 BPM,” “Movie Theme,” “That Girl,” and “No Complaints” and one with an unknown title.  So I guess add those to the list above?

UPDATE 2: Ghost meant “This Girl”, not “That Girl”. Also Beck.com and Beck’s MySpace both now have the video for “We Dance Alone”, so I guess that’s on there too. Still haven’t found the ones mentioned in the MTV article, though…