Beck
The Information

THE REVIEW

‘Comin' to you - One thousand beats per minute…'

Beck's musical elevator strikes again after the uncertain and conformist ‘Guero’, and since only 17 months have passed since its predecessor, everything is clearer now: the L.A. sprite was just joking a bit in 2005, crafting a work that immediately had the feel of a pastime designed for maximum profit with minimal creative effort. In short, a disappointment, perhaps not as bitter as with other seasoned steaks, but still far from the standards Mr. Hansen had accustomed us to since the intimate and poignant lyricism of ‘Sea Change’, or worse, for those who were eagerly awaiting the ideal sequel of the totem ‘Odelay’. Well, relax, you can put away the Yoogi Bear's good suit or the sad Nixon mask from your mental wardrobe; the sound vortex is back in town.

‘Electronic actors and astromagnetic. Corrupted files from galactical planets, writing interplanet code thoughts get transported from Neanderthal skulls…'

The dadaist journey of the unconscious man encounters new forms of the Self and transports us into a cosmic subconscious, fluid like the inexhaustible and restless flight of the spaceship in a dark and free journey, unfettered by any restrictive cage imposed by the church and the West, enslaved by stale rules of an already ‘past’ world — here I recognize the realistic and definitive aesthetics of ‘The horrible fanfare\Landslide\Exoskeleton’, here resides a primordial idea of instinct free from social constraints that finally allows us to run, run, run through the streets, who knows, of Buenos Aires naked with fuchsia wigs on our heads. ‘Think I'm in love’ is the moment when ‘really think I better get a hold of myself, don't wanna let the night get ahead of myself. .' this is enough to understand a sentimiento nuevo that grows up in my mind, oh yeah.. and the syncopated drums hold hands with a solitary and communicative bass, proceeding on the parallel tracks of a tenuous and shaded psychedelia in the finale supported by strings functional to the discourse like an elderly and worn broom to a dirty ground littered with cigarettes and alcohol.

‘Lord, please don't forsake me in my Mercedes Benz.

All the riches and the ruins- Now we all know that story ends.

Strange apparition, haunting my brain-

Standing on the last legs, of a dream that walked away…

Pride is what screws a man over, the important thing is to stick it to him even if your neighbor's jittery little dog happily pees on the shiny rims of your 131 Abarth and some curses stir spontaneously in the bittersweet morning air — a good anesthetic to the state of things is a strong vision with a stones-esque flavor, almost a demo from '71 capable of scraping away the child within us and rocking, rocking on that ancient and modern piano together… And if you watch pensively from the shore as the ship sinks, don’t believe in fortune ‘cuz it might be you drowning for real.

‘The information is ravenous, the ticker tape feeds the mind.

Looking for a lost transmission, a heaven that we left behind-

When the information comes we’ll know what we’re made from. .'

Our master's bucolic/industrial relativism takes on a form propitious to the development of new interpersonal relationships detached from the maximalist logic of the bourgeois literary and salon universe that feeds with greed and savoir-faire prominent exponents of our local politics, but so be it… The circularity of sound and the echo of ancestral sirens reconnect the thread of the gelatinous, elusive form of Warholian memory — a total void where information is both despot and victim at the same time, of course: a conceptual short circuit post 09/11/01 and derelict puppets from hard years now happy with a restrained embrace with an old washing machine in need of affection and care; left to rot in a timeless dump, while a decaying TVC15 broadcasts in replay with hallucinogenic phrases of the lycanthropic Ghezzi, the cold witness, the only pornographic image known since then. And then came the darkness.

An era of sine waves, made of mush and various fractals; an era that, indeed, marches towards the nothingness of a utopian social awakening, a creeping nausea that marks, alas, those who want to find the absolute in every tiny bit of nonsense.

‘Oh, it's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone… '

It doesn’t matter if vaudeville or grizzly hip-hoppers leave your brain hungry, the important thing is to find yourself in the new wave/psychedelia of ‘Soldier Jane’ or in the Bowie-esque electronic ballad of ‘Movie theme’. I don’t care if all this leaves the newcomer or the shrewd adventurer indifferent, after all, it was good old Socrates who had to discredit the slick sophists who thought they could prove any nonsense they uttered — Oh no, here the funk/disco/folk/psycho/rap/pop/electroclash mosaic suffices to absorb songs like ‘We dance alone’, ‘Elevator music’ or ‘Motorcade’ to elevate Man; a ‘cognizant’ being, a subject recognized for a particular and in-depth study.

Now, all together and maybe in carnival costumes like Snuggle Bear or Astronaut (Moulin Rouge dancers for the ladies...) let's shout with the microphone in hand:

‘COMIN' TO YOU - ONE THOUSAND BEATS PER MINUTE!!!’