mutations

Beck challenged his new audience with the organic acoustic expression of this musical metamorphosis.  The huge response to the single 'Loser' was followed up with the multi-platinum 'Odelay' and set up expectations for more of the same style of layered hip hop goofyness; but Beck had other ideas:     "This is the record I've been wanting to make for five years, and I finally got around to making it.  There are two sides to what I do. I'm just trying to let these two sides co-exist somehow...It's a little more serious, but there is some tongue-in-cheek [material] in there. I'm not hitting anyone over the head with it. It's maybe more of a deadpan [style from the] Leonard Cohen school. But the singing is probably the most different thing on the record. The singing has always been an afterthought in other records. It's always the least worked on. I think Nigel is somebody who really encouraged the emotional aspect of the performance to come out. He made it OK for me to be expressive...I wanted to approach the songs as just the songs--not coming at an angle, not coming at it from a '90s perspective or an '80s perspective. I wasn't interested in making it retro or contemporary. It doesn't really have a lot of the trappings of the production of the moment. But, at the same time it isn't so traditional that it sounds like I'm trying to redo some Kinks or Neil Young records...I'd always wanted to make a record that was just a mood piece.  When I get home or I'm at a hotel after a gig, I don't really want to rock out. I don't really want to put on this progressive, electronic Sturm und Drang. The records that I tend to listen to are records that don't hit you over the head. They're like old friends--you can just hang out with them. Like early Neil Young or Joni Mitchell's 'Blue'.  Those kinds of records are pacifying...I had all these songs that didn't fit into what I was doing on 'Odelay', and I had a few new ones, and I was just very anxious to get back in the studio and get my feet wet...We were initially just going to do some demos, see what kind of album I wanted to make. [Bong Load] wanted a more acoustic record anyway, because I was mostly doing acoustic stuff back in '91, '92, when I first hooked up with Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf of Bong Load. We projected at that time me doing some folk records for them, so that was the initial idea. So, we went in the studio, and the two weeks of demos kind of turned into an album."

'Mutations' was recorded live in the studio with his touring band.  The sessions featured Beck on guitar, harmonica, piano, glockenspiel, vocals, and production; Elliot Caine on trumpet; David Campbell on arrangements, conduction, and viola; Larry Corbett on cello; Warren Klein on sitar and tamboura; Bob Ludwig on mastering; David Ralicke on flute and trombone; Nigel Godrich on production and mixing; Smokey Hormel on guitar, percussion, background vocals, and cuica; Joey Waronker on percussion, drums, and synthesizer drums; Justin Meldal-Johnsen on bass, percussion, and background vocals; Roger Manning on synthesizer, keyboards, harpsichord, and background vocals; and John Sorenson  as assistant engineer.  

'Mutations' reached number forty-nine in Germany; forty-six in Austria; twenty-four in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK; eighteen in Norway; fifteen in Japan; thirteen in the US; and number five in Canada.  







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Tropicalia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvJ4T0P2W-I














'Mutations' 
full album:



[00:00] 1. Cold Brains
[03:41] 2. Nobody's Fault but My Own
[08:44] 3. Lazy Flies
[12:28] 4. Canceled Check
[15:42] 5. We Live Again
[18:47] 6. Tropicalia
[22:07] 7. Dead Melodies
[24:43] 8. Bottle of Blues
[29:39] 9. O Maria
[33:39] 10. Sing It Again
[37:58] 11. Static
[42:18] 12. Diamond Bollocks