Monday, November 25, 2019

album review: 'hyperspace' by beck

I didn't even do a full review of Beck's last album.

And I wanted to, believe me - I've been a fan of Beck for years, his genre-blending combined with an uncanny knack for hooks and some ridiculously sharp songwriting has made him one of those artists emblematic of the mid-90s alternative scene, and often praised as an innovator... and yet time has not been all that kind to him. There hasn't been a serious critical reexamination of Beck's legacy by mainstream rock critics and I think I understand why: if they did, they might come to the abrupt realization that his motley pile-up of genres was more novelty and streamlined craftsmanship than genre-pushing experimentation. To quote music critic Steven Hyden, part of his charm was that he was a jack of all trades and a master of none, but that can be a curse years later when the genre fusions become routine and folks are no longer impressed - or in the age of broader music distribution and access to a broader array of underground albums that might not have been heard widely at the time, you realize even the genre fusions aren't that innovative. 

Granted, some of this wouldn't matter if Beck's music had aged a little better or kept up consistent quality. Yeah, Sea Change is heartbreaking and he always tends to wring out a solid single, but I'm not at all surprised that people were underwhelmed by Morning Phase, even if I still think it's a pretty great album with some phenomenally warm, well-blended textures. But it was also signifying that a guy who had once been framed as breaking from the establishment was very much becoming a part of it simply by getting older, and Colors was sadly a glaring example of this, not helped by Greg Kurstin giving him a sound that was paradoxically colourless - hell, even leaving it on the Trailing Edge I probably overrated it. Yes, I still like 'Wow' despite myself for being just kooky enough to connect, but if you want the biggest example of how Beck is in a very different space now than he was twenty years ago? I'll tell you: when I saw U2 a few years back, he was the opening act - yeah.

And thus, again, I had rock bottom expectations when it came to this new album. Yes, the fact that it was being co-produced with Pharrell of all people intrigued me - especially as I can see some real common ground between their brands of weirdness - but the last time Pharrell strayed into oddball production outside of hip-hop proper, we got sweetener from Ariana Grande, Wanderlust from Little Big Town, and Man Of The Woods from Justin Timberlake. So with all of that in mind, how is Hyperspace?

Honestly, it's better than Colors, but not by much, and at this point Beck will likely wind up in the category of acts that are long past their prime but can occasionally hit on a decent idea or a great song every once and a while. If you're expecting wild innovation or the ramshackle creativity that we got in the 90s or even chunks of the 2000s... yeah, this is not really that, but it's pleasant enough to go down easy, and at least in comparison with that last Coldplay album, there are broad ideas that feel more developed, and I'll take that at least - ironic because Chris Martin actually supplied backing vocals to a song here, and which ultimately became one of the keys to giving this album a surprisingly rich organic core.

Granted, it's also one of Beck's easiest albums to describe: atmospheric psychedelic folk Beck made his vaporwave album with the occasional splash of noisy, trap-adjacent percussion you'd expect from Pharrell. And what's kind of sad is how that description makes the album seem a lot more lively or 'out there' than it actually is - in truth, there's nothing as strangely alien and magnetic as 'Wow' on this project, or indeed any abrasive or offkilter tone that would compromise the blissed-out haze most of this album inhabits. And yet I also wouldn't describe this album as explicitly psychedelic - the larger sweep of the mix and cushion of reverb across many of these tracks emphasize just how isolated and lonely Beck sounds across many of these mixes; if Colors was the dance party where Beck felt ever so slightly out of place, Hyperspace is the soundtrack for the lonely walk home. And on some level, this isn't a bad place for Beck to be either: a fusion of more acoustic elements with the normally analog, synth-heavy palette of vaporwave and Pharrell's anxious percussion choices is, at the very least, kind of distinctive, even if you wind up thinking that many of these songs don't really transcend the atmosphere they create. Granted, I can also imagine that many people will hear Beck take this direction with Pharrell in fusing acoustic strumming with skittering trap percussion and think Man Of The Woods, but the tones here seem way more reminiscent of vintage psychedelia, with a splash of The Flaming Lips and some of Beck's nervy, 90s side, the latter absolutely evident in the piano melody on 'Saw Lightning' or the reversed melodic fragments on 'Die Waiting', or whenever he tries to rap. And that's not to ignore the blatant Steven Wilson parallels in the minor key acoustic lines on 'Chemical' and 'Stratosphere', but I should stress that's a positive, especially when the richer analog synths flush the mix and the album is given the space to really breathe, which comes through the best on the excellent closing track 'Everlasting Nothing'. On the flip side, when the tones don't mesh into the atmosphere or the track doesn't evolve, you get a clunker like 'See Through', or the quasi-chiptune tones of 'Dark Places', or the muddy but awkwardly chintzy 'Star'. 

But here's where things get a little strange: dive into the lyrics, full of oblique references to space and disconnection, and you get the impression the discomfort and unease is almost intentional, how there seems to be a little more going on in how frequently Beck questions his own senses and experiences... and it's about this time where I should mention that in the lead-up to his album this year, Beck filed for divorce from his wife over a decade and denounced Scientology, saying that he was never really a proper member despite years of rumours otherwise. And that's when it snaps into focus: where Sea Change might have been a breakup album with Morning Phase framed as its musical sequel, Hyperspace is very much its spiritual successor, with Beck's newfound loneliness and critical reexamination of his past relationship now in much sharper focus. When there is wistful longing like on 'Die Waiting', you can tell even then he's questioning why the hell he's even bothering to wait for her and whether it's worth it, and following that with 'Chemical' where he flips the love-as-drug metaphor to question just how much his judgement was impaired. And as his focus sharpens on songs like 'See Through', as much as he might long for her the song is punctured with lines like 'I feel so ugly when you see through me', and on the title track he seeks dissociation from reality where Terrell Hines contributes the second half of the verse and the telling line 'user needs to be intimidated, they won't know when they're invalidated'. If this doesn't sound like someone who is breaking out of cult conditioning reinforced by a relationship that might well have been emotionally abusive, I don't know what is! It's why Chris Martin's vocal contributions to 'Stratosphere' make sense given what I remember of Ghost Stories and his split with Gwyneth Paltrow, it's why the next few songs of admiration for his ex are framed as her dragging him back towards a darker place that he's nevertheless drawn towards - literally referring to her as having the coin of the realm and the hounds of hell on 'Star' - and it's also why 'Everlasting Nothing' is so oddly exuberant and the best song here. The writing is more oblique but more comfortable in its natural psychedelia, referring to his life as a movie from which he's only now snapped awake, and with the veiled reference to Sea Change under its prospective title once referenced by Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, we hear a moment of respite found. Yeah, it's a bit bleak amidst the vast, unknowable, everlasting nothing with no clear answers ahead, but there's a comfort in knowing he'll find something worthwhile out there, and it's a great closer.

Now here's the problem: for as much as I can argue that this album effectively succeeds in what it's trying to do, I can't really call this a great album. Yes, the arc makes sense and there's a genuine emotional core I'd argue Beck lands... but it's also across an album that's listless, lacking in standout hooks, and features a genre combination I'm left thinking has more potential for greatness than what we get here - a lot of good songs, but few great ones. I do think that Pharrell and Beck could deliver the sort of insane genre-pileup of weirdness that'd be like nothing else released, but this also feels like something Beck had to release to properly break free of those heavy emotions, scattering him to the void so he could have the creative freedom to go further. But as it is, while I will say Hyperspace grew on me, I'm giving it a very strong 6/10 and a recommendation, but a cautious one. In terms of the Beck albums that work in this emotional space, it's no Sea Change or Morning Phase, but it does play in that orbit, and right now I only want to see where Beck will fly from here.

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