Beck Announces NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory-assisted Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration Visual Album & Hyperspace (2020) Re-release
It's been 27 years since the world first heard Beck Hansen's Slacker Rap anthem, "Loser." Although, I would have been six at the time, I can vaguely recall hearing it just a few short years later. To be completely honest, Beck was the first White/Jewish rapper I had ever heard, aside from Beastie Boys Adam "MCA" Yauch, Michael "Mike D" Diamond, and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, of course. Beck would eventually recruit The Beasties' Paul's Boutique producers, The Dust Brothers, to helm his own cult classic, Odelay (1996) and a couple albums later, 1999's Midnite Vultures. Beck has always managed to effortlessly teeter the lines between Hip-Hop, Indie Rock, Folk, Alt. Country, Dance-Rock/Pop, etc. and even won Album of The Year GRAMMY for his 2014 effort, Morning Phase. Strangely, in stark contrast to Folk-leaning Morning Phase, Beck's two albums released since, Colors & Hyperspace, have been a bit more Mainstream Dance Rock/Pop-indebted.
Beck's most recent album, Hyperspace, was released in 2019 and boasts collaborations with Cole M.G.N. Sky Ferreira, Greg Kurstin, Brent Pasche (Spymob/N.E.R.D.) Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, and primary contributions from long-time would-be collaborator, Pharrell, throughout. It was just announced earlier this week that Beck has joined forces with NASA's own Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for a special re-release entitled Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration. "Beck takes the universally-acclaimed album to new frontiers, via an interstellar journey combining publicly-available NASA mission images, curated with assistance from NASA JPL, visualizations, animations, and data with revolutionary Artificial Intelligence tech. The result is the creation of new worlds borne from NASA missions, each soundtracked by Beck's songs: actual Hyperspaces," explains a particularly stellar press release.
Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration is, in fact, a visual album, which "merges science and art, taking us on a journey across space, time, and beyond—all scored by the otherworldly music of Beck's Hyperspace. Actual NASA expeditions and data are transformed into vivid new universes "imagined" by an emerging new kind of creative intelligence." So, not only is there a 13-track NASA JPL-assisted Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration visual album currently available on YouTube, we've been treated to a whole slew of new material to help celebrate this monumentous occasion. A new version of Hyperspace fittingly titled Hyperspace (2020) has been announced in conjunction with Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration; it boasts two previously unreleased tracks, "Dark Places (Soundscape)" and a solo acoustic version of Chris Bell's "I Am The Cosmos (42420)" as well as new 2020 versions of "Star," "Hyperspace," "See Through," and "Die Waiting."
Hyperspace (2020) has already appeared on Spotify with two additional bonus tracks, St. Vincent's Remix of "Uneventful Days" and "Saw Lightning - Freestyle" co-written/produced by Pharrell. Beck's web-store now has a bunch of Hyperspace (2020) merch available for pre-order, including a super-limited edition vinyl LP complete with a holographic jacket and a 24-page booklet with A.I. images and NASA data for each track, limited to 5000 copies. Plus, there's a still special, slightly less expensive, limited edition 12-inch picture disc. Beck's Hyperspace (2020) is now available on streaming services with limited edition vinyl/picture disc pre-orders expected to ship on Friday, December 4, 2020 & Friday, January 29, 2020, via Fonograf/Capitol Records, respectively.