Beck - Morning Phase

A week ago, I walked a mile on Lake Superior to see the much-publicized Apostle Island ice caves — a rare and beautiful homage to a record-setting winter. Soaring rock faces opened onto slivers of frozen blue sky, while a gusty wind echoed through rows of 20-foot tall icicles in some semblance of a pipe organ. To say it was like standing in a natural cathedral is an understatement.

I read that the park service will be closing the caves to tourists on March 14. In the last week, temperatures have risen to above freezing and the caves are slowly melting back to a place only accessible by kayakers and fit swimmers. It's a sign that spring, blessedly, is finally here.

So why all this weather forecasting in a blog about music, you may ask? Because I can think of no better way to describe Morning Phase by Beck, than it's own kind of homage to that hopeful spate of weeks between the cold of winter and the return of the spring. Up here, in a part of the country that's had more than 50 days with a subzero temperature reading, it's simply called The Thaw.




Beck's 12th studio album has all the cool, subtle joy of a long season ending, and another beginning. A 40-second medley of strings dubbed (appropriately, I'd say) "Cycle" opens the album before "Morning" with it's lazy guitar-strumming and keyboard plinks that sound like a laisse-faire alarm clock. Use the song to wake you up in the morning, or as an excuse to roll back over. Either way, you'll be happy.

This isn't 90s Beck. It's Sea Change Beck. A kind-of sequel to that classic 2002 album. In Morning Phase, Beck's voice reverberates through a landscape populated by acoustic guitar chords, synths and string arrangements courtesy of Beck's father. There's a bit of Neil Young's Harvest in it. Some George Harrison, too. In "Country Down" Beck sings of escaping "Just a mile outside of town": "What's the use/Of being found/When you can lose yourself/ In some good ground?" Punctuated by pedal steel guitar and harmonica solos, the song is a little bit country, while the rest of the album is a little bit folk. While it would sound subdued on any other album, "Blue Moon's" thrumming drums are stark but welcome in the midst of so many other sleepy tunes. So is its mandolin.

On the last song, "Waking Light," the keyboard plinks return, and so does the morning. His voice soaring over a synthy dreamscape, Beck asks that when the morning finally comes, he be laid down in the "waking light." "When the memory leaves you/Somewhere you can't make it home/When the morning comes to meet you/Rest your eyes in waking light."

By this point, so do we.