Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

This album’s opening track has an oddly final quality to it. It seems to be announcing the day as done, and sleep, with its promise of dreams and the adventure they bring, soon to come. And so it makes sense that this first track is entitled ‘Intro’; it serves as an apt reminder that this is in fact only the beginning.

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is the sixth album by French solo act extraordinaire, Anthony Gonzalez; that is to say, M83 (in case you were wondering, Gonzalez wasn’t born in ’83… the name is for a galaxy 15 million light-years away in the Hydra constellation, Messier 83. Who knew?). Spurred on by a bout of nostalgia after moving to Los Angeles, Gonzalez put his hand to creating a kind of autobiographical record, one that would chart his course from youth through to adulthood. Also inspired by such sagas as The Beatles’ white album and Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a double album, with each side consisting of eleven tracks.

After ‘Intro’ comes the album’s first single, ‘Midnight City’. The ever-present and oh-so plastic drum machine, synth and funk bass lines really give this sparklingly catchy song (and indeed, the entire album) that sense of the retro. Of course, it is a thoroughly modern retro, hearkening back to a time that the Gen Y-ers listening to it could surely not recall themselves (and certainly be too cool for if they were present in its heyday). This is all well, good and fun. However, while the song admirably manages to get away with the inclusion of zap-gun sound effects – even taking them in its stride – the same cannot be said for the occasional breakout of saxophone. Some things really were better left in the past.

A few tracks later and we have ‘Raconte-Moi Une Histoire’ (that is, ‘tell me a story’), which charmingly lives up to its title. What follows is a fable told by a young girl, of a special frog who turns red into blue and mummies into daddies. One can only marvel at the childhood imagination that Gonzalez may be recalling here. By the twelfth track – the opener of the second disc – the feel has matured from childhood into the melodramatic tragedy of adolescence. What teenager can’t relate to the song’s title: ‘My Tears Are Becoming A Sea’? And, living up to the tempestuous moods of the teen years, the following song ‘New Map’ is a more upbeat, drum-rolling, synth-hook filled offering.

The last song, ‘Outro’ (you’ve got to appreciate the album’s neat little bookends) features a first minute of instrumentals, then a half minute of complete silence before resuming. How timely it is. This period of silence reminds us of what comes at the end of the journey Gonzalez is describing – a greater sense of peace and willingness to wait. Gone is the frenetic excitement of youth and the anxious urgency of adolescence. But the journey is not really over, of course. And we can only be pleased that M83 will be there to capture it as it comes in all its splendour.

– Serrin Prior

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