'Morning Phase'

Beck Hansen tends to be one of those artists you forget about.

He hasn’t released an album of his own music in six years. He’s worked on other artists’ albums since then, but it’s easy to remain invisible as an album’s producer.

He’s trying to stay invisible on his latest LP, “Morning Phase.” Every song is a soundscape, with multiple layers of guitars, pianos, strings and more. Interwoven in those layers are Beck’s vocals.

His voice isn’t a commanding presence. It’s always been understated and nuanced. Even so, Beck elects to put heavy reverb on all the vocals, further masking them. The echo is a borrowed technique from today’s pop bands, like fun. and Imagine Dragons, especially on “Blue Moon’s” soaring melody. But Beck makes the style his own.

One of the projects Beck completed during his hiatus from solo music was a cover of David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” in early 2013. It was ridiculous, overreaching and unnecessary. It featured nearly 160 musicians and ran almost 10 minutes, adding way too much and completely missing the point of Bowie’s original, elegant, near-perfect production.

Maybe Beck learned from that experience. Maybe he, like me, hated that cover after the fact. Because while “Morning Phase” still has many, many layers, they all mean something and come together coherently.

“Morning Phase” would probably best be categorized as psych-folk. On “Say Goodbye,” he borrows styles from chillwave bands like Tame Impala and Toro Y Moi.
The drums and bass are straightforward and lay down a funky groove, but the vocals echo around the song and the synths come in and blur everything together.

“Blue Moon,” though, is definitely more folk than psych. Beck supplements that song’s acoustic guitars and piano with mandolin, giving it an ever-so-slight country tinge. And “Wave” features little accompaniment besides strings to go with Beck’s voice.

Some of the songs even borrow from classic rock bands. “Unforgiven” has the same slow, plodding drum beat that many Pink Floyd songs have, and in places on “Don’t Let It Go,” Beck sounds almost exactly like that band’s David Gilmour.

Beck has been said to be a musical chameleon, and that’s an apt description of him on “Morning Phase.” He’s been in the music business for more than 20 years, and clearly he’s heard some things he likes.

“Morning Phase” can’t hold a candle to Beck’s earlier masterpieces, like “Odelay” and “Sea Change.” And it doesn’t quite have the charm of fan favorites like “Midnite Vultures” and my personal favorite, “Guero.”

But it’s a solid and fitting late-period effort for him. And since he’s had such a huge influence on alternative music for the last 20 years, we’ll give him a head start anyway.