Another VU

So you may have heard Beck recently recorded a full-album interpretation of The Velvet Underground and Nico. It has a nice homespun quality; having your own home studio facilitates that. The covers are a pleasing, playful homage to that big, intimidating work. Nothing revolutionary, nothing embarrassing.

But this track stands out, mainly because the Germanic elements are flipped. Instead of Nico's teutonic harshness, we get warm-throated Thorunn Magnusdottir. And rather than John Cale's avant piano poundings, we get throwback krautpop of the best kind—with its one-chord background insistence, ghostly synth, and a graceful sparseness that hints at some kind of ceremony. It rolls ahead but feels almost suspended in air, pulling off the trick that bands like Harmonia had down pat in their '70s halcyon days. Or maybe I like it because it feels like Autumn, and so does the weather.

Beck - All Tomorrow's Parties