Musical Thesis: M83 “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming”

At the center of every album is a musical thesis. M83’s “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” has the power to send you running to a dictionary to research a word you’ve heard but didn’t know what it meant. The word? Ethereal. Now, I don’t think this album is “extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world.” But the whole thing does seem fragile like it could fall apart at any moment. It has a way of playing like a soundtrack for daily life on our planet. It isn’t perfect. Very few albums are perfect, but it does seem otherworldly.

It also feels distant. Imagine holding something you want at arm’s length. Just from your grasp, the struggle isn’t satisfying but the act of clasping your hands around something you wanted is. In many ways, this album feels the same way. Each note and progression feels like it is within reach of something you could have created but the talent isn’t within reach for most of us. Much like viewing abstract art, you are left with the feeling of thinking you could have done that but you didn’t and that’s what makes an artist, an artist.

In the first paragraph, I said this album could play backdrop to daily life on our planet. As I watch the heavens unfold before me on my little square of this planet, that idea seems like it could be expanded. This album could play soundtrack to the slow hands of time shaping the galaxy in that “extremely delicate and light way.”

Be good to each other,

-Nathan