An AIDs charity compilation offered by 4AD and Red Hot, Dark Was the Night gathers the most recognizable names in the world of indie music for two discs worth of new recordings, the first folk-centric and the second more electric; as one would expect the results are mixed, with some big highlights – excellent contributions from Grizzly Bear (“Deep Blue Sea”), Arcade Fire (“Lenin”), My Morning Jacket (“El Caporel”), a team up between David Byrne and Dirty Projectors (“Knotty Pine”), and one of Bon Iver’s best songs yet (“Brackett, WI”) – and some disappointments – Spoon seem to phone it in on “Well-Alright” and Sufjan Stevens’ 10-minute epic “You Are the Blood” is not nearly as impressive as it thinks it is – but who cares because it’s for a good cause so you should buy it anyway.

Grade: 8.3 / 10

4AD
February 17, 2009

Beck – Modern Guilt

July 8, 2008
Interscope
Rating: 4.2 / 5

The Music Rag One Sentence Review: Beck gets it right with this collection of excellent Danger Mouse-produced tracks, finally learning how to reign in his creative urges and get down to the basics, resulting in some of the best work of his career.

Best moments: “Gamma Ray” is a fuzzed-out piece of pop gold and “Chemtrails” is a serene and epic song with a great “Strawberry Fields Forever” ending. The closer, “Volcano”, sounds like a great lost track from Sea Change, with a bit of a Danger Mouse beat added to it.

Reatarded: Prolific and slightly scary garage punker Jay Reatard did a cover of “Gamma Ray” that appears on the single. Check it out at Last.fm or download it illegally on your own time.