So, too, are the divinely lovely (and “Sea Change”-feeling) “Stratosphere” - with Beck backed by Chris Martin’s vocals - and the melancholy “Dark Places.” The latter, a study of epic loneliness, has the feel of flute-y chamber pop, complete with proggy bass lines, a baroque concertina’s tinkle, a phase-shifted bridge and an insular airiness that would make Alan Parsons proud.īy the time Beck and Pharrell get to the last two tracks, they’re all but ready to move aside the moist synth washes and play in another field.

While the finger-snapping double synths of the trippy “Chemical” are pure Rundgren (even down to Todd’s George Harrison guitar obsession), the title tune is cosmic space-age soul of the highest order. The brief album’s middle section, “Chemical,” “Hyperspace,” “Stratosphere” and “Dark Places,” make up the album’s core. To an extent, the hard-to-hold hooks and spaciousness of “Hyperspace” are what makes it so intriguing. It’s galactic hip-hop without being retro or obvious, with a deep hook so subtle, it’s damned near an Easter egg. That folk-funky feel with its twittering keyboards trickles into the next track, “Die Waiting,” with its slamming drum FX upfront, its acoustic guitar strum below, and a want-you-need-you rap right down the center. There’s even a Stone Roses-ish feel to this for a moment. The pulled steel strings, blowsy harmonica, cheesy rat-tat rhythms and flat-line rap of “Saw Lightning” brings us back in time to “Loser”-era Beck - that is, until the pulse grows more undulating, Beck’s vocal flow grows tuneful and a glammy synth wash blows in like a storm. If Beck’s “Hyperspace” has a quiet mission statement, this is it. Going for unadulterated, understated synth-pop where no song overstays its welcome, Beck moves through an icily airy, glitch-hop start (“Hyperlife”) to get to the bell-tinging, table-knocking “Uneventful Days.” Here, among the doubled-up harmonies (Williams and Beck together?), and pillowy synth clouds, the singer tells of “living in the dark, waiting for the light” and being “caught up in these never-ending battle lines,” until he gets to the second stanza, and a stark insistence: “You might know my name, but you don’t know my mind.” Kurstin even appears as a co-writer on “See Through,” a willowy soul-hop track with a breathy high vocal - a yodel, even, at song’s coda - that owes as much to Khalid’s sleek R&B as it does Nick Martinelli’s brand of tapped percussion. Although you’d hate for Beck and Pharrell to repeat themselves, these guys are good for each other.Ĭoldplay’s Chris Martin and Sky Ferreira may sing on it. Going one step further, it is the wiliest work that Williams has produced outside of his abstract funk-rock NERD agenda. How does “Hyperspace” affect the charts? Who knows? This is the best, most frank and adventurous thing Beck has done since “Morning Phase,” but with a far lighter touch in mood and musicality.

Together, as producers and occasional co-writers, the duo turned “Hyperspace” into a joyfully introspective, minimalistic but sophisticated, contagiously melodic, straight-ahead, analog synth-pop record with a fleeting few of old school Beck’s signature touches - a few raps here, some dobro and harmonica there.įor the most part, Beck is using his lower vocal register to sing quickly spun, contemplative tales to a soundtrack that is equal parts Washed Out and Todd Rundgren during his post-blue-eyed soul phase (that is, the 1973-74 period that found him morphing through the layered synth-asia of “A Wizard/A True Star” into the navel-gazing soft prog of Utopia). Outkast, R.E.M., Pharrell, Patti Smith, More Nominated for Songwriters Hall of Fameīenefitting from such melodic directness, yet holding onto the spare but cosmopolitan complexity of albums such as 2002’s “Sea Change” and 2005’s “Guero,” surely became a blueprint for Beck when going into “Hyperspace,” with its principle collaborator Pharrell Williams. Coldplay Puts Touring on Hold, Citing Environmental Concerns

Beck hyperspace review