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The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Album Review: Hurry up, we’re dreaming by M83

By Maya A. Weisinger

I really wish that this album didn’t sound like how elevator music would if I was inside of one in an original Gameboy game. But it is unfortunately so. And I pity the fool who scanned the ratings on Pitchfork and went to download the creation as if it was going to be the next Most Played thing in their iTunes library (after Adele’s Someone Like You…121 times). Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is not not enjoyable; it’s just an album of overused motifs and techniques that, at this point in mainstream “indie” music’s life, is simply nothing special. Aiming for some sort of throwback, 80s-laced compilation M83, implements all the tricks in the book: echoey chamber effect (check), high-pitched synth riffs (check), empty electronic drum beats (check). The album manages to serve as a good backdrop to most things. I would include watering your ferns and ironing your silk ties in this category. Or mediocre jazzercizing. I will pace myself for a moment to sincerely admire the effort put into releasing a double-album. For the 30-year old band leader, this is not his first rodeo. Dreaming, his 6th studio release, marks a decade of dedicated and diverse music production. He showcases this by making a well-played decision to call in the The Shakespeare Bridge Children’s Choir to sing backing vocals throughout the album. If he had made more conscious decision to implement organic sounds into the mechanical mix, I’m sure this album would make a much bigger and better wave. The tracks are not a spectacular collection, but I have relayed my wary opinions of the more intriguing ones,. “Splendor”, on the second cd, is enjoyable if the listener is nostalgic for a certain Christmas-sing-a-longs-at-John-&-Yoko’s-house feeling. Otherwise, at first listen it might come off a bit like a Bon Iver rip-off: ooh and ah-filled echoyness, yet without the same sincereity and intent that drips off of Vernon’s tracks. “Reunion” sounds like an unfortunate one night stand baby was conceived by the ugly body smashing of Phil Collins/Sting (post-Genesis, post-The Police, respectively) and Phoenix b-sides. “Raconte-moi Une Histoire” is the song that caught my interest and my biological clock’s. It is some repetitive indiepop business with a toddler voice reciting a toddler story about frogs over it all. Which is actually pretty fantastic. The singer does not sing (read: yelp) over this track and it is full of imaginative lines, fitting for the dream concept that the album tries to hit. I wish to see M83 try harder and challenge themselves in the crafting of their music. Our musical desires as a generation have moved past manufactured beats on repeat. Throughout the album there are glimpses of greatness that I expect will be showcased in upcoming releases. I will wait until then to be satisfied with a product of M83.

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