Founded by the French musician Anthony Gonzalez they create ambient electronic based music and soundscapes. However does their new album ‘Hurry up We’re Dreaming’ take the listener to another place as intended by the band?

The album starts as it wishes to continue, with lots of synth and reverb. It starts slow with and ethereal sound that builds up slowly with more layers. The addition of a choir coated in reverb only adds to the fantastic overall sound that fills your speakers. With the great opening out of the way the album then moves seamlessly into the next song that is more upbeat but keeps that synth base. The song ‘Midnight City’ is an upbeat tune with a unusual sax solo towards the end but it seems to work well for the song.

This upbeat feeling continues with the next song that also includes an interesting monologue during the bridge, this is a repeated idea throughout the whole album with many songs containing sound clips of monologues. As well as this another idea used a lot during the album are interlude songs that mainly just contain synth and drums in them. However these are essential to the album as a whole as they allow it all to have an incredible flow and keep up the motif of dreaming throughout.

The interlude slows down the pace for a more acoustic sound to follow while not sounding out of place. The mix of acoustic guitars, drums and soft drums with a heavily reverbed vocal track work very well together.

This song then leads into what is my favourite song on the whole album ‘Raconte-Moi Une Historie’ which I feel is a perfect representation of a dreamlike state in a song. It starts out with a simple synth based beat and a monologue read by a little girl that talks about a very different world. While she is talking the music is slowly building up until she finishes speaking and the soundscape takes her place and just washes over you.

As the first CD comes to the end the final song gives a cyclical feeling with it reflecting the opening song having a choir and a similar sound as well. It finishes off the first half of the album off well. The second half then begins with an epic sounding song that has a strong beat and well matched vocals. The next few songs proceed to be fast paced uplifting tracks until the next interlude that allows for a gear change down.  This is followed then by another one of my favourite tracks ‘Splendour’. This song for me is one that I could just shut my eyes to and go away to another place. With a soft piano part and a choir filling the sound wall the song just washes over you and leaves you relaxed and soothed.

The album then proceeds to finish with a final song that gives the feeling of waking up excited for the new day about to begin with the low bass giving way to high synth and vocals to brighten up the song.

On the whole this album is a work of art, with so many fantastic pieces that all fit together perfectly. It is well sculpted with fantastic production values. But most of all the concept of dreaming is used throughout meaning that the entire album has a real direction, the flow of songs managed by interludes only adds to the listeners experience with an ever changing variety of sounds and paces. Among a great selection of songs there are very few things that I dislike, the only being that sometimes the sound goes a bit too close to the 80’s style synth but never really crosses the boundaries too much.

For anyone looking to listen to an album and get taken away I would recommend this to you, just close your eyes and go with the flow.

Our Rating
9/10