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You think vinyl's retro? Try going back to the way music was distributed before the invention of recorded sound. Last year, after almost two decades of releasing albums in the conventional way, Beck decided enough was enough. Why should he have to do all the tricky recording work and worry about creating definitive versions of his songs, while his audience just passively soaked up his wizardly alt pop off their iPods and hi-fis? The solution: 'Song Reader', a so-called 'album' that was actually a 108-page book of sheet music for the listener to perform themselves.
It was a huge success, with hundreds of people recording their own version of the book's 20 songs, but Beck himself still doesn't seem to have any plans to release his own recordings. Which means that for the foreseeable, the only way you'll be able to hear Beck playing his new material is at this collaborative concert at the Barbican, where every song from 'Song Reader' will be performed – and not just by Beck. He's enlisted a pretty stunning line-up of guests: Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Franz Ferdinand, Guillemots, Michael Kiwanuka, Conor O'Brien of Villagers, rising folk sisters The Staves, James Yorkston and The Pictish Trail. And there's an all-star house band – mega-haired Polar Bear/Acoustic Ladyland drummer Seb Rochford and Dave Okumu and Tom Herbert of The Invisible – directed by singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt and composer (and former Pogue) David Coulter. Unless you've got a copy of 'Song Reader', a grand piano and and very impressive address book, this will be a one-off. Don't miss it.