viernes, febrero 14

The group MGMT returns with big pop

They said to each other “meant to pretend”as they sang about It’s time to pretendone of the anthems from their notable first album, Oracular Spectacular (2007). In a psychedelic and melodious whirlwind, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, the one-man bands of the duo MGMT, imagined an insidiously artificial life: fame, drugs and adventures with a string of models, in Paris. The latter would give them the total – marriages, babies, divorces – as they mourned the death of “green paradise of childish loves”. “Love must be forgotten” (“love must be forgotten”), were the definitive words of the hit.

Seventeen years later, the oracle has been spectacularly verified. Not only because It’s time to pretend anticipated the failings of our time, whose emptiness and excesses she marvelously mocks, but also because Andrew VanWyngarden, in a dizzying play of mirrors, partly followed the program he had set for himself: success helping him, he fell in love, after several renowned top models, with a French woman, with whom he recently had his first child. There ends, however, the parallel with It’s time to pretend. Contrary to contemporary pretenses, the MGMT would be nothing more than love and sincerity, if we are to believe Loss of lifetheir splendid fifth album, released on February 23.

“On this record, we set ourselves a challenge: to write as simply and as directly as possible”, says Andrew VanWyngarden by videoconference, from his home in New York. Fine features, discreet curls, slender voice: at over 40, he has retained his seraph airs. “We have always appreciated the humor of certain English groups, like Prefab Sprouthe continues. They use the absurd as an existential survival tactic. Since at least September 11, irony, play, mystery has revealed to us, too, how to exorcise our anxieties. This time, however, they are less central. Love prevails. The divine, eternal feeling that I feel for my child has inspired me a lot. »

“Feel the joy”

Based in Los Angeles, his compass, Ben Goldwasser, camouflaged under a thick beard, gives him the answer: “Love is a way to confront all the negativity and atrocities that shake the world. In recent years, so many people have publicly expressed their concerns. Some things, unfortunately, cannot be resolved. Without doubt, humanity is condemned to disappear. This should not prevent us from feeling joy when it presents itself to us. »

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