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Beck: Hyperspace review – dewy, plush and on-trend

(EMI)

Colors, Beck’s last album, won two Grammies. Its sequel finds Beck retaining the marketplace nous of producer Greg Kurstin on one track and adding that of Pharrell Williams, purveyor of cheek-popping flair on more than half the album. Beck’s records can often veer away from the sound of their predecessors, but Hyperspace is no minimal DIY folk jam: it’s dewy, plush and on-trend.

Beck’s eclecticism arguably paved the way for the bonfire of the genres in the present decade – even phenomena such as Old Town Road. Here, Saw Lightning is a genre-torching bop that harks all the way back to Beck’s Loser days, but it’s a red herring. Lit by the glow of vintage video games and a kind of hazy west coast liminality, Hyperspace sounds mushily contemporary, at least at first. It glides along on lasers, coasts on thermals – until suddenly it doesn’t. Deep turmoil festers at the centre of these superficially dazed confections, featuring Auto-Tune, multi-tracking, bleached funk, raps and woah-woah-woahs. The gestation of the album coincided with the breakdown of Beck’s marriage of 15 years. Once the lyrical sorrow and apocalyptic visions hit home, Hyperspace is revealed as a bleak, spacey R&B tour de force.

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