After an astonishing 38 years in the spotlight, the eight-time Grammy winning, multi-genre icon reconnects with the musicians and mood behind some of his most beloved work in his first new LP in seven years

BY EMMA FLOYD · PHOTO BY MIKAI KARL

For more than three decades, Beck has made unpredictability something of a signature. The Los Angeles musician first struck gold with “Loser,” the 1994 slacker anthem whose collision of folk guitar, hip-hop rhythms, and surreal non sequiturs made him an unlikely star. What followed proved considerably harder to categorize. Across albums that have moved between sample-heavy alternative rock, funk, psychedelia, electronic pop, and acoustic songwriting, Beck has built a career around versatility.

This September, he returned with Ride Lonesome, his 15th studio album and first collection of all-new material since 2019’s Hyperspace. This time, however, one of music’s most persistent shapeshifters is looking deliberately toward his own past. The connection runs directly through Sea Change, Beck’s melancholy 2002 album, and Morning Phase, its warmer, more meditative 2014 counterpart, which won Album of the Year at the 2015 Grammys. For Ride Lonesome, Beck reconnected with Smokey Hormel, Joey Waronker, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., and Jason Falkner, musicians with whom he shares a deep collaborative history. Nigel Godrich, the longtime collaborator who worked on Sea Change and 1998’s Mutations, returned to mix the album, while Beck handled production.

The reunion took place in Room B at United Studios in Hollywood, a favorite recording space of Beck’s and another deliberate return to familiar ground. But nostalgia, at least by Beck’s account, was not the objective. After decades of playing together, he said the group’s chemistry felt as though it had “evolved and deepened,” even as the sessions led them toward new sounds and emotional textures.

The first songs suggest as much. “Ride Lonesome” begins around acoustic guitar before widening into piano, strings, and a sweeping arrangement that recalls the spaciousness of Sea Change and Morning Phase. “In the Night” takes a similarly subdued route, turning nocturnal reflection into something cinematic, while the recently released “Disappearing Act” layers understated vocals, acoustic guitar, and orchestration into another glimpse of the album’s quieter register.

Across 12 tracks, titles like “Failed Words,” “It Ends Right Here,” and “If You Don’t Know What Love Is” hint at the introspective territory ahead. More revealing, though, is the decision to revisit a musical language Beck has spent much of his career moving both toward and away from. Sea Change was once a striking departure for an artist associated with collage-like production and genre collision; more than two decades later, its influence has become one of the clearest threads running through his catalog. At 56, with eight Grammy wins and nearly 40 years in the biz, Beck no longer needs to prove he can reinvent himself. In his 15th LP, returning to an old sound may be his own way of finding somewhere new.

Beck — beck.com