Beck – Waking Light
Lovely song off pending Morning Phase album mixes the majesty and anxiety of daybreak. Hear it now.
BECK UNVEILS A BEAUTIFUL TRACK off his forthcoming Morning Phase album, rapturously reviewed in the latest MOJO magazine. Waking Light combines a chumbling, classic Elton John piano vibe with a number of other mellow-’70s sonic signifiers, yet building up surges of the spine-tingling melancholy that are uniquely Beck. The sunbeams in question appear to bring not relief or rebirth but a searching examination, and in the guitar that comes crashing in at the end, there’s the promise of trouble before lunchtime. “Waking light, it grew from the shadow,” Beck appears to sing (it’s a bit indistinct). “Brace yourself to the morning low.”
It’s typical of a soon-come album that mines ’70s tropes, utilising great players with access to that elusive feel: Roger Joseph Manning Jr and Jason Falkner, session guitar legend Smokey Hormel plus Beck regulars Justin Meldal-Johnsen and Joey Waronker. Some people are already calling it Sea Change II; that sounds pretty good to us.
BECK IS INTERVIEWED IN DEPTH IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF MOJO MAGAZINE, ON SALE NOW. HERE’S A TASTE.
PHOTO: Piper Ferguson for MOJO