In short, itвЂ™s as if Morning Phase and Colors found a middle ground: flawless songcraft meets electronic pop, both leading each other away from their comfort zones.

On Hyperspace, however, Pharrell and Beck work in perfect synthesis. The danger of having two such unique artists work together is that they end up canceling each other out, as opposed to taking each other into unchartered territory. Hyperspace is, in BeckвЂ™s telling, an album about вЂњfinding peace in the momentвЂќ вЂ“ and, with its sparse electro arrangements and lyrics in search of relief from troubled times, it is an album resolutely of the moment. Does Pharrell have a вЂњHappyвЂќ to distract us? Is Beck mixing business with leather on escapist party jams? No. The mind boggles at the thought of what the pair might have made together at the turn of the millennium: Pharrell, his fingerprints over almost every hit song of the era Beck, deconstructing the very notion of how songs were meant to be writtenвЂ¦ Put that together and who knows where 21st-century pop may have gone? Now, however, with both of these guys approaching 50, and another new decade dawning, their music вЂ“ and music in general вЂ“ is in a very different place.Д«ut is the rest of the world? Call it Y2K fever, pre-millennium tension, or, party over, oops, out of time, but a similar dread that pervaded the coming of the year 2000 permeates the current cultural climate.

Twenty years after first wanting to work with Pharrell Williams, Beck finally gets his wish.

Hyperspace beck