Beck
Sea Change

Sea Change is released four years after Mutations, an album that hinted at a change in direction compared to the astounding records at the start of his career.
I deliberately ignore Midnight Vultures, which, as is well known, was released to fulfill a contractual obligation with the record label, something that does little honor to Beck and even less to Interscope.

Those who loved the audacity, irony, and nonconformity of his beginnings can make peace with it. Mr. Hansen has changed, he has matured, but above all, he looks with disillusioned eyes at the world around him and the music he hears.

After experimenting with rap ("Beercan" on Mellow Gold - 1994), Brazilian rhythms ("Tropicalia" on Mutations - 1998), funk ("Sexx Laws" on Midnight Vultures - 1999), and many other sounds, he rediscovers the song form in its childlike and extraordinary simplicity. The guitar returns to an unprecedented acoustic purity on its own ("Side Of The Road"), accompanied by a piano ("Little One") or by a host of violins (as in "Lonesome Tears"). "Round The Bend" is made ethereal and dreamy like a piece by Notwist precisely by the strings, which wrap the album convincingly and never garishly.

On the other hand, the Californian musician has proven to be a true artist and to manage excellently on his own with harmonica or guitar. Everything added during the arrangement phase is measured with careful (too much) attention, and the album proves to be balanced and not trivial, but also not very spontaneous.
Not all pieces fully convince; at times, a certain self-satisfaction with his own sadness emerges, weighing down the atmospheres.
"Little One," for example, would be doomed without that playful piano toward the end...

Beck, in search of serene simplicity, writes a complex and not very immediate album. It will be pleasantly listenable if you resist the initial temptation to discard it.