Beck “Ride Lonesome”

A majestic album with its roots in sadness from celebrated multi-award winner.

Long-awaited, Ride Lonesome is eight-time Grammy winner Beck’s first collection of all-new material since Hyperspace some six years ago. All 12 tracks were written and produced by Beck, with playing and production assistance from many of the team behind 2015’s Album of the Year Morning Phase and its spiritual predecessors, 2002’s Sea Change and from 1998, Mutations. Another long-time collaborator, English engineer and producer Nigel Godrich, was responsible for the mixing. He, of course, is well known for his Grammy-award-winning work with Radiohead and Roger Waters, along with countless others. Ride Lonesome was recorded in Beck’s favourite Studio B at United Studios in Hollywood and includes contributions from many of the musicians who played on those earlier albums – Smokey Hormel, Joey Waronker, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner.

Opening with acoustic guitar strums and closing with an upward slide of pedal steel that suggests hope, the album takes its themes of adversity and loss and confronts them in the most hauntingly beautiful and mesmerising way. It’s been said that Beck’s best work arises from setbacks, especially in matters of the heart, and there’s a strong sense here that pain lies behind the gorgeous melodies and lush soundscapes that permeate the album. Beck himself says:

“It had been a decade since we went in the studio and recorded “Morning Phase”. This time it felt like the playing and the chemistry had evolved and deepened – a sound that’s come together over the decades of working together. While we were revisiting a musical and physical place, it also felt like we were finding new sounds and emotional textures along the way.”

Beck defies categorisation, but it’s as if alchemy has brought together The Beach Boys and Nick Drake and created something that spans the achievement of such masterworks as Pet Sounds and Five Leaves Left. Perhaps it’s too fanciful to think that Beck had this in mind when designing the album cover; Beck is partially obscured as a gauze curtain billows in the draught from an open casement to the left of the picture, the composition reminiscent of a Vermeer painting. Then glance at the cover of Nick Drake’s album, and there he is, gazing wistfully from his Hampstead apartment’s window. It’s a nice thought to see this even as a subliminal tribute.

The chord structure of In The Night strongly evokes the spirit of Drake, with no less than eight violins credited, along with three violas and three cellos. The strings were arranged by Beck’s father, David Campbell, then there’s a horn arrangement and a fabulous upright bass part from the virtuoso jazz-fusion musician Stanley Clarke.

Failed Words might have sprung from the genius that was Brian Wilson; it has the grandeur of God Only Knows, yet the muse is inspired by a sense of loss:

All my words in vain, my love
I want to turn back the world
And bring you back to me
As you rise to your horizon, she’s gone.

The penultimate track, If You Don’t Know What Love Is demonstrates Beck’s ability to wring the heartstrings. Co-written with Eli Reuben Hirsch, it’s a slow waltz rich with pedal steel, courtesy of that doyen of the instrument, Greg Leisz. The longest cut on the album, Beck’s plaintive vocal delivery will chime with lovers of The Band; try to imagine Rick Danko singing The Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses, and you will have an idea of the song’s pathos.

Final track Beyond The Light fittingly returns to an orchestral arrangement with strings and wind section in a sumptuous production that closes the collection. Though the songwriting may have been rooted in pain and sadness, the end result is both inspirational and uplifting.