A true hidden treasure by American alternative musician Beck, Modern Guilt is his eleventh studio album, released in 2008. Modern Guilt features two contributions by Cat Power and was produced by Beck and Danger Mouse. The album was actually nominated for Best Alternative Album at the 51st Grammy Awards, but eventually lost to In Rainbows by Radiohead.

One of our favorite albums, easily makes our Beck Hansen Top 3, excellent sound expertly mastered and pressed on great quality vinyl, highly recommended!

• High Quality Audiophile Vinyl
• Pressed at Optimal Media in Germany
• Cut by Simon Davey at The Exchange studio in London

"Co-produced by Danger Mouse, Modern Guilt indulges Beck's love of Sixties psychedelic music, and the results are vividly rendered — all acid-trip guitars, mod dance-party beats, daisy-chain harmonies and thundering percussion. But beneath the DayGlo arrangements lie some deeply bummed-out songs about living in a time of war ("Walls"), environmental degradation ("Gamma Ray") and widening generation gaps ("Youthless"). Danger Mouse brings a hip-hop DJ's love of funky old rock records; Beck brings the end-of-the-Sixties, pre-apocalyptic hangover.

Taken as a whole, the album's first five songs stand among Beck's strongest work. The most dazzling example is "Chemtrails," which nods through a heroin haze of droning guitars while Beck imagines jets flying above a sea full of dead people. The song title comes from a conspiracy theory that holds that some jet trails are actually chemical sprays engineered by the government for secret purposes. But you don't have to know the reference to feel the dread. Staring at the corpses, Beck sings, "So many people, where do they go?" The morbid answer is implied: No matter where all the lonely people come from, they all end up in the same place.

Still, there's a lot of life pulsing through Modern Guilt. With chugging guitars and a ponying rhythm, "Gamma Ray" seems custom-made for a go-go-dancing interlude in a James Bond movie. "Orphans" feels like the perfect ashram love-in, complete with flutes, acoustic strumming and Age of Aquarius harmonies courtesy of Cat Power's Chan Marshall. "Volcano" could be a lost outtake from Elliott Smith's XO, resurrected with a hip-hop drumbeat. And "Youthless" sounds like the funkiest disco-style robot-rock song ever performed on a cello.

Beck and Danger Mouse aren't afraid to follow their ideas all the way down the rabbit hole, even if no one else is particularly interested in what's on the other side. The swamp-blues exercise "Soul of a Man" is so maddeningly repetitive, it's almost hallucinogenic. And the world probably isn't ready for the drum-and- bass revival spearheaded on "Replica." (Too soon!) But some of the experiments that dare to fail big also feel the freshest: "Modern Guilt" reinvents the Doors' "People Are Strange" as a shuffling midtempo beatnik ballad — and, somehow, it works." - Melissa Maerz, RollingStone

Track Listing:

01. Orphans
02. Gamma Ray
03. Chemtrails
04. Modern Guilt
05. Youthless
06. Walls
07. Replica
08. Soul Of A Man
09. Profanity Prayers
10. Volcano

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