Tuesday 12 January 2016

Sound and Vision

COVER OF THE MONTH #8

Sound and Vision - Beck


Beck does Bowie, boy does Beck do Bowie. Beck does Bowie with a 157 piece orchestra. Beck conducts them throughout, spinning on stage with his acoustic guitar, a finger wag here, a gesture with his arms there.

Listen with your headphones on when you get to the video below.

The start is incredible as Beck wanders around conducting the orchestra and generating noises that switch from your left ear to your right (microphones were suspended above). This goes on for an intoxicating 3-minutes before Beck and practically everyone burst into life with the classic Sound and Vision riff.

Beck's Dad conducts the orchestra which contained 2 choirs, xylophones, Chinese percussion, vintage electronic equipment, marching band drummers, samba players, heavy metal guitarists and loads, loads more.

There is brilliant bit where everything stops leaving Beck strumming his acoustic guitar backed only by handclaps and the choir. It then builds up to a collage of noise before Beck returns the song to something that wouldn't sound out of place on his Morning Phase album. Beck then takes things on a funky cinematic trip for the duration of the song during which he really stamps his mark on the song, it absolutely soars, it is brilliant to watch and to listen.

Waiting, for the gift of sound and vision

It is 9-minutes of magic, made possible by the Lincoln Car Company who told Beck he could do something with no limitations or restrictions. 

Beck shows that like Bowie, he has the gift of sound and vision. Astounding.

Previous covers of the month

2 comments:

kitty said...

This is absolutely fantastic. It makes me want to rush out and do something amazing.

everythingflows said...

Yup -special