W.C. BECK, A Mostly Quiet Life

And the winner for the most slyly ironic album title by an indie artist in 2025 goes with ultimate praise and respect to A Mostly Quiet Life by the exciting an insightful veteran singer-songwriter W.C. Beck, whose peripatetic lifestyle (years in Portland, OR and Paris before settling into his recent digs in Brooklyn), busy studio career (appearances on over 50 albums) and international tours supporting the likes of The Decemberists, The Dandy Warhols, Michael Hurley, The Moondoggies and others hardly qualifies as a tranquil existence.

The masterful and illuminating, highly personal eight song presentation of his numerous folk, rock, country and Americana charms gathers eclectic recordings from a unique ten-year stretch (2012-2022) across various locales, studios and life seasons. This artful stitching and weaving truly embodies Beck’s overview of the project as a “vibey quilt of the many versions of me during those different periods.” Designing a true LP listening experience dividing the tracks into Side A and Side B, he regales listeners from the get-go with rollicking, ever-rockin’ originals reflecting a hopeful embrace of change (“This Year”) and the ambivalence, regret and nostalgic longings based on personal decisions (“Girl on My Mind”).

He infuses the eclectic journey with a whimsical, romantic, spiritually tinged love song “Cast,” a raucous barnburner about ambivalence (sitting on the blistering, electric guitar-buoyed “Biblical Fence”) and having more jumpy autobiographical pop-rock fun on the self-deprecating “Bright Failure,” which chronicles his adventures upon moving from Portland to Lawrence, KS a few decades ago.

While these gems are all well, good and worthy additions to Beck’s ample catalog, the emotional centerpieces of the collection are the heart and soul-breaking renditions of impactful obscurities inspired by the pandemic era losses of legendary singer/songwriters Jerry Jeff Walker and John Prine. Though he frames Walker’s deeply inspirational “Every Drop of Water” through the prism of distorted electric psychedelic folk, the singer’s heartfelt, country tinged vocals convey his lifelong embrace of Walker’s influence – and a bit of the devastation he felt when Walker passed. Beck’s version may not quite inspire listeners to spin the tune 50 times, as he did after the first came up on Amazon shuffle, but its earnest poetry will merit a lot of contemplation.

Beck wraps the album in a graceful bow with a tender and hypnotic, fuzz guitar spiked version of the criminally overlooked lonesome Prine chestnut “Blue Umbrella,” which features one of his most earnest, cut straight to the heart vocals.