Pitchfork

If a new Beck song cuts off a minute short and nobody in the blogosphere seems to notice, does it even matter if it makes a sound? Yesterday the idiosyncratic Los Angeleno posted "Chemtrails", from his Danger Mouse-produced forthcoming album, on his website and MySpace, and it sounded like he'd been "Timebomb"-ed all the way back to the 1960s. It's an era that Danger Mouse, the self-proclaimed auteur behind The Grey Album, two soul-steeped Gnarls Barkley albums, and the latest Black Keys LP (let alone his work for Damon Albarn's projects), knows well. Beck's in an intriguingly psychedelic place here, his layered vocals raining down pure and Pacific Ocean blue like those of a Wilson brother-- Brian, et al., not Owen and Luke-- above fading organ chords, touches of cosmic David Axelrod funk, splashes of piano, and rumbling drum fills that stay just this side of bombast. Beck murmurs about boats on the percussion-less verses, and about seas of people on the chorus, with shades of a beach-bummed "Eleanor Rigby": "So many people, where do they go?"

Just one problem: The version so many people posted about yesterday stopped short, with Beck in mid-sentence, which you wouldn't have known from reading about it. (Not to sound like Helen Lovejoy here, but in the maniacal rush to be first to post something, is anybody even paying attention to the music anymore?) Thankfully, this stream over at iLike lets the song's bridge continue its translucent swell all the way to a string-laden conclusion. Turns out it's a false ending, and guitars rear their heads for a turbulent solo before the track cuts off once again-- this time in the middle of an instrumental phrase, something like the end of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". It's a massive and welcome improvement on what we've been hearing from Beck lately. And it's definitely worth listening to all the way through.

Stream:> Beck: "Chemtrails"
[from Beck's forthcoming album; due this year on Interscope]