Album of the Week

Beck
Guerolito (Interscope)

Beck made his bones on the sheer recombinant jollies of cut-and-paste: He snatched up hip-hop's fetish for hooky samples and microsurgical sonic stitchery, added goofball dada lyrics and created his own ongoing art project. Whether ear candy like Odelay was nutritious or merely a zesty backdrop for Beck's inspired doggerel didn't matter as much as the pleasure it gave. He got back to those roots on this year's Guero, a return to chock-a-block form after the orchestral melancholy of 2002's Sea Change. And now, on Guerolito, Beck goes one step beyond. The remix disc punches up the singer's natural affinity for gonzo noise-bursts and studio arcana, with 14 freshly scrambled versions of original Guero tracks, variously deconstructed and super-sized by folks like Adrock (from the Beastie Boys), John King (of Dust Brothers fame), Air, El-P and Boards of Canada.

The disc is a huge amount of fun, even when it overdoes the quirky synthesizer shtick. 8Bit maxes out the video-game noise effects of "Hell Yes," now accurately described by the title "Ghettochip Malfunction," letting Beck rock with a robot voice (À la Kraftwerk) and laying in hard on the lo-fi keyboard blurts. Meanwhile, Air takes "Missing" and reinvents it as a Gary Numan tribute called "Heaven Hammer." Diplo goes for a mild mash-up on "Wish Coin" (a version of "Go It Alone"), which matches Beck's sing-songy vocals and spare handclaps to a downtempo rhythmic bed borrowed from the English Beat's "Twist and Crawl." We have to admit, though, that our favorite moment is Petra Haden's "la-la-la" chorus fluttering over ominous synths on "Rental Car." It's so incongruous it's perfect—which is an apt description of Guerolito's best parts, as well.