1/12/2023 0 Comments Beck hyperspace reviewNext is “See Through”, a Greg Kurstin-produced track that hits a very similar vibe. On its own, the song is fine, a slightly slower than mid-tempo track, and a nice change of pace from the poppier first few songs on the record. This one has synths all over it, plus acoustic guitar, and the barest hint of a beat that fades away in the spaced-out falsetto chorus. The warm vocals, easygoing hook, and beat and guitar combine for another catchy track, and at this point Hyperspace is four songs in, and three of them are really good.īut once the album hits track five, “Chemical”, it all starts to turn to mush. that meshes a Sleigh Bells-like big beat (but tamped down) with ’80s-pop synths, acoustic guitars, and Sky Ferreira on backing vocals. It’s catchy, and the vocal melody meshes really well with the synths while the song’s mood matches the lyrics about being stuck in a sort of life holding pattern where the same things happen every day and the days bleed into each other.įrom there, it’s on to “Saw Lightning” and then “Die Waiting”, a non-Pharrell song produced with Cole M.G.N. This track indeed has synths all over it, but it also has a solid hip-hop inspired beat and an energetic vocal take from Beck. But Hyperspace is sneaky because this intro piece immediately gives way to another pop gem, “Uneventful Days”. He slurs his voice into the synth tones and closing by repeating “With you / With yooooouuuuu” before it all fades away without a hint of percussion or any other instrument besides the synths. Waves of quiet, new age synths build up for 40 seconds before Beck starts singing “Faster, farther, longer, harder”. The 97-second-long album introduction song, “Hyperlife”, gives a better indication of what the bulk of this record is about. “Saw Lightning” is terrific and should take its place among the great Beck singles. Oh, and Pharrell makes his only vocal appearance on the album in this verse, slur-rapping his way through a few lines that are credited as “mumbles” in the liner notes. The second chunk of the song brings in a high-pitched staccato synth line that essentially adds melody to the drumbeat and serves as the song’s biggest earworm. The song runs through all of this in the first minute, throwing in harmonica, wobbly bass, and sustained electric guitar as it goes. Instead, it’s a weird pop banger, featuring swampy slide guitar, a skittering drumbeat, a falsetto “ooh ooh ooh” background hook, and apocalyptic lyrics presented in an affable tone. The first single “Saw Lightning” doesn’t betray any of this mood. Probably not what fans of either artist would expect, although Beck has a long history of defying expectations. Anyway, when these two veterans team up, the result is a mostly sleepy, spacey, synth-drenched album without much in the way of big pop hooks. Williams’ long track record of production and performance is hit and miss, but any attempt to list his credits would likely take up the bulk of this review. Once the lyrical sorrow and apocalyptic visions hit home, Hyperspace is revealed as a bleak, spacey R&B tour de force.Hyperspace, Beck’s 14th album, is largely a collaboration between Beck and Pharrell Williams. The gestation of the album coincided with the breakdown of Beck’s marriage of 15 years. Deep turmoil festers at the centre of these superficially dazed confections, featuring Auto-Tune, multi-tracking, bleached funk, raps and woah-woah-woahs. It glides along on lasers, coasts on thermals – until suddenly it doesn’t. Lit by the glow of vintage video games and a kind of hazy west coast liminality, Hyperspace sounds mushily contemporary, at least at first. Here, Saw Lightning is a genre-torching bop that harks all the way back to Beck’s Loser days, but it’s a red herring. Beck’s records can often veer away from the sound of their predecessors, but Hyperspace is no minimal DIY folk jam: it’s dewy, plush and on-trend.īeck’s eclecticism arguably paved the way for the bonfire of the genres in the present decade – even phenomena such as Old Town Road. Its sequel finds Beck retaining the marketplace nous of producer Greg Kurstin on one track and adding that of Pharrell Williams, purveyor of cheek-popping flair on more than half the album. Colors, Beck’s last album, won two Grammies.
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