Front Page Reviews & AIR

Have you ever found yourself backed into a corner?  Filled with anxious energy and beating neurons, negotiating the crackling impulses of the fight-or-flight response?  M83’s new record Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is capable of cooling this white-hot feeling in my soul, at least temporarily.  This new dose of engaging, lush tunes from Anthony Gonzalez and company immediately calms my restless legs and anxious heart.  The French indie-pop act’s new record is strikingly cinematic; the pacing and the ambient nature of the record remind us of times when we could get away with being cocksure, naïve and confident, a la Ferris Bueller on his infamous day off.  Yes, this album is, in many ways, a classic 80’s film—the first listen will bring back the sense of knowing and being able to predict the sequence and the rhythm of things, a feeling that can get lost with age.  The music is so lush and engaging that it nearly paralyzes you with its innocence and its wisdom.  Like a John Hughes plot point, the songs pull you into an optimistic world laden with giddy voices.  Listen to the child on the “Intro” whispering:  “We didn’t need a story.  We didn’t need a real world.  We just had to keep walking, and we became the stories.  We became the places.  We were the lights, the deserts, the faraway worlds.  We were you before you even existed.”

Prophetic words spoken from the youth! The interplay between young and old, prophecy and intuition, and faith and realism, all come together in the complexities of the album. In the poptastic club single song “MidnightCity,” Gonzalez sings, “The city is my church. It wraps me in its blinding twilight.”  It is as if William Blake is narrating the opening sequence to Blade Runner!  Even on the most pop-oriented tune, Gonzalez seeks spirituality; the listener feels both the intellectual grapplings of the words and the sensory overload of the music.

Later, Gonzalez gets psychedelic.  On “Raconte-Moi Une Histoire,” which starts with a ping-ponging beat, hand-clapping and finger-snapping, another child’s voice rises over the din, telling us of a special frog that “if you touch it, your world can change forever.”  It is as if you were staring at a painting by Basquiat, where at once you feel in awe and intimidated, while also feeling as if you could easily play on the canvas with your fingers and paints just as he did.  The child continues: “If you touch its skin, you can feel your body changing, and your vision also.  Blue becomes red and red becomes blue, and your mommy suddenly becomes your daddy.  And everything looks like a giant cupcake.”  In Gonzalez’s world, the playful possibilities of youth are there for the taking.  Everyone can be an androgynous psychedelic baker!

The epic nature of the album continues onto the second disc with “My Tears are Becoming a Sea”and “New Map.”  The latter sounds as if Gonzalez and company are embracing a retro “Pretty-in-Pink” sound, with the drone of the sax wafting over the crescendo of beats.  On “Ok Pal,”they get even more retro, with yappy vocals and synthesizers galore, creating a revelatory textural palette for listeners like myself.  I begin to think: isn’t it interesting how sometimes the things that will help us clarify our predicament in the present are sounds, touches, visions, and instincts from our past?

The choir in “Another Wave From You”is the closest you are going to get to religious experience on this record, which segues into  “Splendor” (need I remind you of the religious quality of Whitman-like “splendor?”), and then into the pedestrian pop of “Steve McQueen,”  a tune that will blast triumphantly from car stereos everywhere.  “I woke up stronger than ever, driven by big waves of fire, to run and yell all the way,” sings Gonzalez, in between resounding high-pitched echoes and the vibrations of a thumping bass drum.

Indulge me, and listen to this record as I do.  Allow your own past and future, wisdom and innocence, cynicism and wonder, to drift over you.  Come to peace with the anger, the frustration, and the anxiety that is often present in our everyday lives, and then wait for the spectacular crescendo to wash it all away.  This is what good music can do.