When he wants to anyway. In this featurette, you’re invited on a journey into the creative bender as well as Beck and Feist-bolstered studio experience that was the creation of Lidell’s new full-length, Compass. Wait for the snippet of the three of them collaborating on what Lidell describes as a “desert ballad” to see what I mean by the headline above. It’s uncanny, at the 3:30 mark and totally rad.

Compass is out on May 20th on Warp Records.

What happens when you take the offspring of famous cultural icons and have them produce an album together? IRM. That’s MRI backwards. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what came out of Beck, grandson of artist Al Hansen and son of Bibbe Hansen, a regular fixture at Warhol’s Factory, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose parents, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, may have been the coolest people to ever roam Earth. No surprise then that IRM, which despite being billed as Charlotte’s second record, is really a collaboration on all fronts, a cultural assault of cool synths, minimalist rhythms and all sorts of post-modern swirls and glitches. Not to mention, Charlotte’s monotone chic, “looking through a glass onion.” While Charlotte has made the title track available for download, the album’s first single, “Heaven Can Wait,” co-written, produced, and mixed by Beck, as was the rest of the album, is set to hit your RSS reader and maybe even physical stores October 12th. Head over to Charlotte’s web site for a your first taste of the collaboration.

After covering The Velvet Underground & Nico with a group of musical collaborators including Devendra Banhart and members of MGMT for the first iteration of his Record Club, Beck has opted to focus his second effort on Songs of Leonard Cohen and has posted his cover of “Suzanne” on his Record Club’s website. Collaborators include Devendra and MGMT again, along with members of Wolfmother and Little Joy.

The website describes the Record Club project as “an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day.” Relying on spontaneity (nothing is rehearsed or arranged beforehand), the group selects an album “to be reinterpreted and used as a framework.” A track is posted to the Record Club website once every week, and the recordings tend to be rough renditions, especially since they are frequently the first takes of the day. “There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens,” the site claims.

Check out the cover of “Suzanne” here, and be sure to check the Record Club’s website over the next few weeks for more covers from Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Beck has been spending a lot of time at his computer. We’ve already posted about his “Irrelevant Topics” series a couple of weeks ago. Since his debut interview with Tom Waits, Beck and funnyman Will Ferrell sat down and had a chat. The interview was nothing short of HI-larious, from Beck’s introduction (see below) to stories of Ferrell’s dreams to be in Cirque du Soleil. But interviewing Will Ferrell isn’t the only thing the internet-savvy Beck has been up to lately. His Record Club, Planned Obsolescence, and Videotheque sections are all being updated fairly regularly. Check em out.

I met Will in 1997 when he was a new cast member on SNL and I was a musical guest. Somehow during rehearsals I got asked to participate in a skit with him. Over the years I got to watch him work several more times during his tenure as a cast member, undeniably a comic genius. We got to perform together once again at a benefit for Tsunami Relief in 2005. Here we got to catch up and talk about unitards, cirque du soliel and local 70’s TV commercials.

On his website,Beck has launched a series entitled Irrelevant Topics which, as he states, “…features conversations between musicians, artists, writers, etc. on various subjects, without promotional pretext or editorial direction”. The first in the series is with legendary bard, Tom Waits. TW and BH have what looks like a long instant message conversation. Check out Part 1, where they talk about where they come from, lightning, Los Angeles, playing shows and of course, MUSICS.

Beck has begun to morph his wares even further, turning his site into a pool of covers he or guests have done as part of his recently founded Record Club. The Club is about to release it’s first collaboration, a re-imagining of The Velvet Underground & Nico. Weekly, Beck has been filling the DJ slot on his site himself so that fans can cop said covers, one being the hallowed “Waiting for the Man.” Check his site, get your cover jam on.

—Meryl Natow

As an introduction to his recently announced Record Club, Beck posted this cover of Velvet Underground & Nico’s “Sunday Morning” with a vocal assist from Icelandic lady Thorunn Magnusdottir of the band The Honeymoon. Are there Scientologists in Iceland now? If so, how and when did that happen? Presumaby, Beck will put up “I’m Waiting for the Man” next Friday, hopefully with Giovanni Ribisi on flute.

Beck has announced that he is embarking on a new project entitled Record Club, and it’s a pretty exclusive club. Every week Beck will have an unrehearsed, one-day session with another artist (such as MGMT, Devendra Banhart, or Jamie Lidell) and record a classic album to be posted on his website. First up on the list of classics to be tackled is The Velvet Underground & Nico, and his version of “Sunday Morning” has already been released as a bonus 7″. This project brought to you, for free, courtesy of the internet. (via Rolling Stone)

The first time we were tipped off to the Danger Mouse and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse collaboration, it came via a poster. This time it’s coming from across the pond.

As we told you, Danger Mouse and Linkous have written a 13-song album called Dark Night Of The Soul that features, among others, David Lynch, The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, Iggy Pop, Frank Black and The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne.

Now, as revealed to NME, the album has a full track listing, release date (or approximate at least) and some special packaging.

Dark Night Of The Soul will be released sometime in June and will come packaged with a book of David Lynch photographs to accompany the music. It will retail at £38.99 (so, like twice as much in the U.S.) and be limited to 5,000 copies. And get this — there are no plans to release the album as a legal download or on any other formats. We assume that means the physical release will be on wax (or better be).

An exhibition will run in the Los Angeles Michael Kohn Gallery from May 30, showcasing the photographs alongside the music. Danger Mouse is also producing Beck’s follow-up to his 2006 album The Information.

Dark Night Of The Soul track listing
01. Revenge (featuring The Flaming Lips)
02. Just War (featuring Gruff Rhys)
03. Jaykub (featuring Jason Lytle)
04. Little Girl (featuring Julian Casablancas)
05. Angel’s Harp (featuring Frank Black)
06. Pain (featuring Iggy Pop)
07. Star Eyes (I Can’t Catch It) (featuring David Lynch)
08. Everytime I’m With You (featuring Jason Lytle)
09. Insane Lullaby (featuring James Mercer of The Shins)
10. Daddy’s Gone (featuring Nina Persson)
11. The Man Who Played God (featuring Suzanne Vega)
12. Grim Augury (featuring Vic Chestnutt)
13. Dark Night Of The Soul (featuring David Lynch)

We gave you the heads up a while back that Beck had been hard at work on the reissue of One Foot In The Grave, 15 years after its original release. Now, the big news: the new version will feature 13 previously unreleased tracks and a deluxe edition with remastered vinyl, a limited edition signed poster and — brace yourselves — a tote bag!

Usually we have to wait till people are, well, two feet in the grave to get this kind of old, unheard of material, but why wait when there’s money to be made? You can pre-order your deluxe edition, which will include a remastered 180 gram, two-LP vinyl edition of the album, the CD package, a limited edition signed poster, the album and 16 B-sides, including the 13 previously unreleased tracks, a collectible tote bag, a limited edition tee shirt and a code for album download (DRM-free). That’ll cost you $105, and promises to ship on or before May 31.

As for the album itself, here’s the full tracklisting with those mysterious bonus tracks. You can order the CD and the digital download for $17.98 and the vinyl and digital dowload for $29.98.

One Foot In The Grave rerelease
01. He’s A Mighty Good Leader
02. Sleeping Bag
03. I Get Lonesome
04. Burnt Orange Peel
05. Cyanide Breath Mint
06. See Water
07. Ziplock Bag
08. Hollow Log
09. Forcefield
10. Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods
11. Asshole
12. I’ve Seen The Land Beyond
13. Outcome
14. Girl Dreams
15. Painted Eyelids
16. Atmospheric Conditions

Bonus tracks
01. It’s All In Your Mind (K Records seven-inch)
02. Whiskey Can Can (K Records seven-inch)
03. Mattress
04. Woe On Me
05. Teenage Wastebasket
06. Your Love Is Weird
07. Favourite Nerve
08. Piss On The Door
09. Close To God
10. Sweet Satan
11. Burning Boyfriend
12. Black Lake Morning
13. Feather In Your Cap (K Records seven-inch)
14. One Foot In The Grave
15. Teenage Wastebasket
16. I Get Lonesome

As is our want, we’ve flipped the script here at The Singles Collection and in the spirit of timeliness, this week we’ll be featuring seven-inches that were exclusive to last Saturday’s Record Store Day (our newest all Sacred Bones feature will now run next week). Now, some of you may be listening to these as you read this, others may have unfortunately been shut out, while other still may have no idea these singles, or Record Store Day for that matter, even existed. At any rate, we’re only scratching the surface of the exclusive platters that were available on the 18th (for a full list, go here), and we hear some stores may even still have stock on some of these titles, so if anything strikes your fancy, best get a googlin’.

To kick things off this week, we’ve got a pair of split singles from Matador featuring the kings & queen of the alternative universe, Sonic Youth aka Sonik You*h. The first split features another icon, Beck, in a mutual appreciation style love fest which finds them covering each others’ songs — SY tackling “Pay No Mind” while Beck takes on “Green Light”. As you might imagine, Thurston & Co. thoroughly rough up the Mellow Gold sleeper, injecting it with their patented off-key/kilter harmonies/harmonics and some skuzzy meta-ooze thrown in for good measure. On the flip, Beck takes the EVOL track and turns it into a lovely, acoustic cloudburst that, if you didn’t know better, you’d swear was one of his very own.

The second exclusive RSD jam from Sonic Youth is their split with Memphis’ favorite son, Jay Reatard. For his part, Jay’s track, “Hang Them All” is a scorcher, a blink-and-you-missed-it track that bubbles with skittering synth and a clap-trap rhythm reminiscent of the Blood Visions-era. It alone is worth the price of admission, and certainly bodes well for his upcoming full-length. The SY track, “No Garage” is a rehearsal space jam that, well, sounds a lot like you’d figure a Sonic Youth rehearsal would. Which isn’t to say it’s bad, but it’s essentially instrumental meandering with a nice, Kraut-y groove that eventually denigrates into their trademark squall of loping distortion and ear-piercing feedback. Both of these splits are, ostensibly, sold out, but stores with extra stock seem to pop up daily, so make sure to keep a close watch if you don’t want to pay eBay prices.

The Sub Pop stable did their part and released a handful of limited 45’s for RSD, the best of which is the Obits‘ “I Can’t Lose” b/w “Military Madness”. For those not already familiar, Obits are Rick Froberg from Hot Snakes/Drive Like Jehu’s new project, and while their sound doesn’t really deviate too much from either/both of those outfits, it’s still new Froberg jams so who are we to complain? “I Can’t Lose” is less dissonant/angular than we’re used to hearing him, yet it roars with a heads-down fury and undeniable hooks-a-plenty. On the flip, their take on Graham Nash’s “Military Madness” flips the original on its ear, injecting it with a venomous core that’s both touching and destructive in equal measure. Copies of this still seem to be kicking around places like Reckless Records, so if you need some more Froberg in your life, you know where to go.

Lastly this week, we’ve got one of the lost gems from RSD, the super limited Kim Phuc & Centipede E’est split on Dear Skull Records out of Pittsburgh. These were primarily only available in the Pittsburgh area, with some other notable stores (Permanent Records in Chicago, Academy in NYC) getting the remaining stock to give away to punters who came out early and purchased vinyl. We’re not sure if this is going to get a proper release or not, but it truly deserves one as the two tracks here are absolute stunners. On the A-Side, Kim Phuc’s “Rustbelt Noose” delivers all the spit-crusted-psych-punk power you’ve come to expect from them, and has now officially taken the mantle as the greatest KP song yet. Not to be outdone on the flip, Centipede E’est offer up “Stingray”, an epic space-rock jam that’s ebbs and flows with terse psych-grooves and sky-melting crescendos. These are absolutely gorgeous, all hand-numbered out of 200 and featuring fantastic screened covers. We’re not sure if they are still available anywhere or not, but we’d suggest trying Paul’s or Wicked Discs in Pittsburgh if you are trying to track one down.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our truncated look at some of the Record Store Day exclusives, and make sure to also keep an eye out for others like the Slayer “Psychopathy Red” 45 and the totally awesome Jesus Lizard 9×7″ collection Inch as they’re both totally worth your time and hard-earned loot. Also make sure to come back next week to read about the newest batch of gems from one of our favorite labels, Sacred Bones Records.

Though Beck’s record, One Foot in the Grave, never found itself climbing up the charts upon its original release in 1994, the independent record is being resurrected and reissued as a deluxe edition, and will feature 16 unreleased bonus tracks.

has been out of print since 2005, but according to an interview Beck had with The Daily Yomiuri, he has been working on the reissue for the past two or three years. ”On the original tapes there were an extra maybe 30 songs that weren’t on the record and I picked the best. So it’s got about a little over a dozen extra tracks that no one’s heard before,” said Beck. 

The album was originally recorded before the release of Mellow Gold, in the fall of 1993 by Calvin Johnson, but wasn’t released off of K Records until after Beck’s major label debut was put on the shelves in 1994.

Next week we’ll get back to exploring new obsessions, but this week is a look back. So join me, won’t you, on a trip into the self-infatuated past as I put my body and brain to a weird and unnecessary test: I will review all 48 G.S.A.T.M.’s of the past year in a strange, ill-advised contest to determine which one is the “Best” and, consequently, “Wins.”

I’m excited to re-experience “Smell Yo’ Dick”. A vast majority of the songs covered by this column over the past year were either part of my collection for a while or held some sort of vested interest (genre, artist, cool sounding name, etc.). This majority did not include “Smell Yo’ Dick”, a fun diversion I defended as a legitimate song nearly nine months ago, and now I again face the task of legitimizing the song once more in this self-created contest format. Many other songs and artists have been off my playlist since they first gained “Greatest at this Moment” status, so I’ve been jonezing to experience them again and see how they hold up, if at all. Looking down the line-up, I thought I could handicap the winners pretty easily, but I’d forgotten that each one of these songs owned a full week of my 2008. Most people listen to music they enjoy pretty much all of the time, but this re-hearing is something beyond mere fanship. It’s as though I’ve fasted for months and now I’m being served my 45+ favorite dishes, one after another. I often use the “This Song Can’t Possibly Be Topped” criteria to choose my subject, but this week has been something entirely different. How could I pick a winner when my shuffle goes from “Dracula’s Wedding” to “(Ghost) Riders In the Sky” to “Summer Nights?” Now I’m charged with deciding if “Smell Yo Dick” could really exist in my everyday playlist, or if it was just a one-time thing in my life, like smoking or wearing sweat pants every day in junior high.

Initially I just loaded my iPod with only the songs I’d covered, but this was way too daunting. Though it did make for interesting song-to-song transitions (”Optimistic” to “If I Could Turn Back Time”), I couldn’t wrap my brain around anything long enough to compare them objectively. I started making notes of the first song to give me chills (”C’mon Everybody”), the first song to get repeated plays (”Mama Kin”) and the first song to get skipped (”Ramble Tamble,” but mostly because it’s so long). And while it may be worth noting that “Summer Nights” was the first song to surprise me at how well it held up, I couldn’t find a direction to take.

I decided to get organized. In the spirit of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, I arranged the songs into a handful of categories. Organization being a keystone of my success, I assumed putting like with like would help me better compare the songs. Like the powers in charge of that crazy mollybang* of excitement and competition known as the Final Four, I found I had to make a few concessions. Sometimes Maryland just has to end up in the West bracket, you know?

And so, in a strange mix between American Bandstand and March Madness, I arrived at the following categories, all in an effort to make art competitive.

Soundtracks and Cinema
“Age of Consent”
“The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning”
“Drug-Stabbing Time”
“If I Could Turn Back Time”
“Paper Planes”
“Shadowboxer”
“Spectacular Spider-Man Theme,”
“Starman”
“Summer Nights”

Covers, Live Covers and Concert Influence
“C’mon Everybody”
“We’re Going to Be Friends”
“Mama Kin”
“Indian Giver”
“Listen To Her Heart”
“Timebomb”
“Optimistic”
“You Dress Up For Armageddon”
“(Ghost) Riders In The Sky”

Kinetics
“Black Mirror”
“Girlfriend”
“GTO”
“It’s Tricky”
“Length of Love”
“Me In Honey”
“No Fun”
“Pathetique”
“Truckdrivin’ Neighbors”
“Untitled”
“12:51″

Loud Dancing
“Blow Up The Outside World”
“Guns On the Roof”
“Improper Dancing”
“Negasonic Teenage Warhead”
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Damnation”
“Dracula’s Wedding”
“Evil Urges”
“Ramble Tamble”
“Voices Carry”
“2000 Man”

Dick Smelling
“Smell Yo’ Dick”

This was something my inner Dick Vitale could handle. Looking down the line I could foresee great things for “Drug-Stabbing Time” in the Cinematic Category, with a good showing from “Paper Planes”. I could also see that the Live Covers and Concert Influence bracket would be the toughest, not only in song quality, but in legacy. These were some of my favorite artists doing some of my favorite songs. In the Kinetics category — a group of songs built around momentum and tension — I could see the fundamentals getting played up. I was tempted to disqualify the late-arriving “Black Mirror” in favor of a joygasm like “Girlfriend”, but that’s why these things get played on the court/my ears, and not on paper. Uh… yes. The Loud Dancing category seemed like a catch all, but its leanings to the heavy could either smother the more jamming tunes (”River Deep”, “Honky Tonk Women”) or make them stand out better. The tribute to great Bridges seems like it would lend itself to the direction of “Rollercoaster”, but “Voices Carry” could surprise me.

At least I was sure “Smell Yo Dick” would be tops in its bracket.

I started my experiment within an experiment and found I’d made my life more difficult. I was protective of certain songs, and then tried to be too cool with others. I’d start listening to “12:51″, and realized it felt like the Big Ten entry to this particular tournament: I’m inclined to say everyone underrates it, yet deep in my heart I know it’s probably going to loose to some Big East powerhouse. And it did. At the very least, I could admit that some songs truly were grown out of a particular time in my life when planets aligned, stars alighted and everything gained harmony. And for this, I am thankful. Songs like “Shadowboxer”, “We Are Going To Be Friends” and “Single Ladies” were just the right songs at the right time, and that’s what it’s all about. I may never play “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” again, but I’m happy and thankful for that pre-release moment when it made the “Watchmen” movie seem greater than it would eventually prove to be.

This being my own competition, I decided to do the right thing and apply a little more of “The Bachelor” and/or “Flavor of “Love” to this equation, sans hot tubs: I would go with my heart and see what came out. After much hair pulling and semi-sleepless nights and even more repeat plays of “Starman” this Bachelorization gave us the Final Six. Now we were getting somewhere. What was formally 3 hours is now just over twenty-two minutes. I could work with this crew, trim it down to the best 4.5 minutes of the pack. I activated the shorter playlist and drifted into audio heaven. This was my personal Grammys and I wasn’t going to award some old dude who teamed up with a younger artist just because the old dude was once a cool young dude. This was mine. Here now, in reverse order, are the Greatest Songs of this Moment At This Moment.

“River Deep, Mountain High”
Already, I’m qualifying things, but isn’t this just a 6-way-tie for first? I mean listen to this song. These are the kinds of songs that baffle me because I don’t hear them everywhere. I want to meet the person who wouldn’t shake their hips to this monster.

“Voices Carry”
Perfect. Aimee Mann’s heart-pouring at the end gets to me every single time. It’s blatant 80s-ness production proves that people who qualify songs as “timeless” don’t get it. It’s perfectly in touch with its time, thereby giving it the power to pull us all into its own time.

“Me In Honey”
The biggest surprise — as far as word count of the original article goes. I think it was one of my shortest articles, but maybe that’s helped it in this competition. And maybe I was wiser than I thought, because the song is so simply and obviously beautiful that there’s not much to say about it that it can’t say for itself, and much more elegantly. But it really surprised me here because it not only beat out some songs I would’ve considered “better” or more my favorites, but it handily. It’s just the same two chords over and over again, but it’s the right two chords over and over. Combined with one of my musical Kryptonites (female backing vocals — and apparently lead vocals, as evidenced by these finalists), and we have a dark-horse we can believe in.

“Smell Yo Dick”
The moment of truth, and it’s great. Don’t take yourself so seriously, America. I can’t say it’s a fantastic song, or better than some of the other songs not in the finals, but when I think back on the 2008 GSATM Season — and I will — “Smell Yo Dick” rises as a weird highlight. Also weird, I remember more of the words than I’d care to admit. And even though it had an easy bracket to get through to reach this point, I would still argue the sing-ability of this chorus is as catchy and fun as any of the final six.

“Drug-Stabbing Time”
For someone who claims to not be much of a Clash fan, I sure do love the Clash. And with good reason. Give this song one listen while you’re driving on the highway, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s like a cousin of our top song, only losing out because I believe I can dance better with the other one. This one makes me run. And at the risk of repeating myself, the near-outro section of this song sets a gold standard for what rock songs should be all the time.

But of all this hullabaloo and self-examination and self-awareness, I hereby award the First Annual Greatest “Greatest Song At This Moment” At This Moment to “Timebomb”, the jam of jams. From the shouted intro, it’s the best collection of noises I obsessed over the entire year. It’s a throw-away single, which are usually the best kind anyway. No consequences, no rules, just do it. And it’s done. For me, this song arrived in the summer thanks to a Beck concert, and I consumed the song so hard that even after giving it a full examination, I still played it the following week, even though I was supposed to be “obsessed” with whatever song I was supposed to be obsessed with (”You Dress Up For Armageddon”). Beck may have many, many… many signature songs, but for a classic example of his something-from-virtually-nothing style, nothing quite reaches “Timebomb’s” levels. Pattern = music. “Timebomb” fits the Best of the Pack criteria in two very important categories. The first being “The Repeat Instinct,” alluding to my finger’s reflex toward the repeat button every time this song winds down. The second criteria being that to me, “Timebomb” makes such sweet love to my brain that I can see no faults with it. I sometimes say I feel bad for people who don’t like this song or that song, but at this point in my life I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying “Timebomb”.

*This is my PG-13 version of “clusterfuck.” But once you become friends with someone named Molly, it gets really awkward.