Complete with full-colour, heyday-of-home-play-inspired art for each song and a lavishly produced hardcover carrying case (and, when necessary, ukulele notation), Song Reader is an experiment in what an album can be in the 21st century. Beautifully illustrated by Marcel Dzama, Leanne Shapton, Josh Cochran, Jessica Hische and others, Song Reader has been designed by Beck with the help of McSweeney’s for release in December 2012.

The 20 songs here, including two instrumentals, are as exciting as you’d expect from their author but if you want to hear ‘Do We? We Do’, or ‘Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard’, bringing them to life depends on you, the reader.

Includes: 108 pages (comprising 20 individual full-colour song booklets -18 featuring original lyrics, and 2 instrumentals -with covers from more than a dozen different artists)