Ay Guero!

Last night was fun. Manon made a stir fry with some lotus root (which is the weirdest vegetable I have ever seen; looks like a buddhist wheel, or some kind of diseased plant, depending on your imagination) - and this time it was a success. I picked up some salad rolls from Indochine and we chowed down like queens with Dana-Ève. Then we went to the Rideau Centre and ran some errands at the way-too-expensive-and-addictive Aveda shop and Shopper's Drug Mart. I had fun dancing away with an uber serious look and a massive stuffed bunny in my arms, and Manon nearly peed her pants. Ah yes, and Dana-Ève and I each bought the new Beck CD. When we got home we popped a copy in the CD player, sat on the kitchen floor and sampled the album. We started by going through each track and listening to a minute or so of each, then returned to the ones that stood out a bit. It was great to love music again, it just felt nice and old-school to actually make an event of listening to a new album - not while cleaning, or reading, or walking around. Just sitting down for our own Beck CD release party. Cheesy, but plenty fun too. First impression: c'est une vraie réussite. To a certain extent there is a return to the Odelay material - upbeat, quirky, some rapping, some good beats. But it's a riper, cooler version with some of the melancholy and depth that was on the Sea Change album. Lyrically, it's a nice mix of Beck-style abstract ("I'm the vegetable man in a vegetable land"), and more direct, sullen messages ("I prayed heaven today/Would bring its hammer down on me/Pound you out of my head/I can't think with you in it"). So far, it seems like a near-perfect mash of Odelay and Sea Change. As Beck would say, Hell Yes.

I listened to the album some more while in the shower this morning, and I'll be listening to it in a few minutes because I've got some mind-numbing data entry to do. Will provide more details soon. Until then - if you're a student, or you don't have much cash, or you have a decent reason, I'll burn it for you (I have a rationalization system in place). Otherwise, it is highly recommended for your next-cd-purchase lists. Come on, this ain't quite the Britney Spears machine, you know?