Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2012
Indie rock antihero Stephen Malkmus reconvened Pavement to much fanfare in 2010—but it turns out he wasn’t finished yet with The Jicks, the group he formed after disbanding Pavement in 2000. Their latest album, last year’s Mirror Traffic, was produced by Beck, making it a meeting of minds between two of the hardest working slackers in alt-rock. Malkmus actually sounds happy on the album to be freed from Pavement expectations, and Beck gives his production a light touch, souping things up only with a dash of lap steel guitar on “Tiger” here, and a bit of fuzz on “Spazz” there.
