Beck is five months and three albums into his Record Club project and the results get better with each new update.
The latest, a cover of Skip Spence’s Oar, with the first song released “Little Hands”, starts off on a high note. Joining Beck this time out are Wilco (Jeff Tweedy, Mikael Jorgensen, John Stirratt, Pat Sansone, Nels Cline, Glenn Kotche as well as Jeff’s son Spencer who adds his drumming skills), Feist, Jamie Lidell, Brian Lebarton and the incomparable James Gadson (Bill Withers, Bobby Womack, Boz Scaggs and many, many more).
Oar was Spence’s only release and, though it sold meagerly, had an influence on a great number artists. Sadly, mental illness took Spence away from music and he died in 1999. But his spirit remains and has resulted in one of the more surprising and beautiful tributes this year from the Record Club project.
Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. As you will hear, some of the songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. 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. And those who aren’t familiar with the albums in question will hopefully look for the songs in their definitive versions.
