Pitchfork

Back in 1997, director Michel Gondry helmed the clip for Beck's "Deadweight" (from the soundtrack to the forgettable film A Life Less Ordinary). It lived up to both artists' high standards of video awesomeness: everything is backwards (Beck works at the beach and goes on vacation at the office; his room has photographs all over the walls and wallpaper in picture frames, etc.), Beck interacts with clips from the film, and there's a figure wandering around whose body is made entirely of drums.

Hopefully, that magic will return with the Gondry-directed video for "Cell Phone's Dead", from Beck's as-yet-untitled forthcoming album. We don't know anything else about the video, other than that it exists. But isn't a world in which a Beck/Michel Gondry video exists a much better place than a world in which it doesn't? Yes.

Beck recently reported on his official (and visually spastic) website that his new record will be out on this fall. The follow-up to last year's Guero finds Beck collaborating once again with producer Nigel Godrich, who was behind the boards on 1998's Mutations and 2002's Sea Change. But don't worry-- that doesn't mean we're in for another totally sad-sack affair. Beck told MTV.com last weekend at Bonnaroo, "Before we started, Nigel said he wanted to do a hip-hop record. And in a way it is, and in a way it isn't. It has hip-hop songs, and my previous work with him was Mutations and Sea Change, these sort of introspective records, and so this new one is sort of bringing those two worlds together."

He also revealed the plan for the album artwork. "The artwork is laid out in stickers, it's modular, the cover is blank and you get a sheet of stickers and you make your own cover." Sounds like grade school art class all over again!

MTV.com also reports that a double-disc tenth anniversary reissue of Beck's Odelay album is in the works. It will be beefed up with extras, including, B-sides, remixes (by Aphex Twin, Mario C., the Dust Brothers and others), as well as "Deadweight".

Currently, Beck is busy previewing songs from the album on his summer tour. The space cowboy wraps up a string of North American dates this week before jumping o'er the Atlantic for some European fests.

06-27 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern *
06-28 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern *
08-11 Copenhagen, Denmark - Tivoli Concert Hall
08-12 Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
08-13 Dyrehaven, Denmark - Danmarks Smukkeste Festival
08-16 Amsterdam, Holland - Paradiso
08-17 Hasselt, Belgium - Pukkelpop Festival
08-19 Staffordshire, England - V Festival
08-20 Chelmsford, England - V Festival
08-22 Edinburgh, Scotland - Meadowbank Stadium #
08-24 Dublin, Ireland - Marlay Park
08-26 Paris, France - Rock en Seine

* with Jamie Lidell
# with Radiohead

And in case you didn't make it to Bonnaroo, here's a YouTubular clip of a bear rapping during Beck's set: