morning phase

winter landscape through the bus windows between Montreal and Boston a few weeks ago.

Have spent the last few days listening to Beck's much anticipated new album Morning Phase. It's his first full length album in six years, and has proved to be close to as, if not equally as well crafted and beautiful as his twelve year old masterpiece Sea Change. The 2002 album that has been a lead reference for countless artists and producers as to how exceptionally well produced and tasteful music should sound. Beck has called the new album a "companion piece" to Sea Change and the similarities are many.

His gentle, meditative, almost evangelical voice is hazy but addictive. The warm, bass heavy kick drums and soft acoustic guitars are beautifully woven into a sound which is as immersive as Sea Change, but for obvious reasons more mature, more spiritually collected and not quite as wallowing as its predecessor. 

Listening to track #2, Morning, I can't help but thinking about our world. The nature and environment that is falling apart around us. The corruption and chaos of society …. he could have very much sung about a broken relationship as many times before, but as I currently happen to live within a civilization which I question and feel frustrated about on so many levels, I read the lyrics as some sort of grasping for a better place. Better time. Another chance for planet earth and humanity.

"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 
 Can we start it all over again this morning? 
I lost all my defenses this morning 
Won't you show me the way it used to be? 
 I've gone all around 'til there's nothing left to say 
Wrote it all down into something that couldn't be said 
I tore it all down and buried me underneath the wave 
 Can we start it all over again …"

Listen to the whole album here.

Highlights: Morning - Unforgiven - Wave - Turn away 

Can't wait to turn up the volume of this album in my headphones during night passage on the boat this summer. I can feel it'll be a great companion on dark, starry nights out at sea.