Mystic logistics

>> MGMT’s past and future teeter in the
balance on their reflective new album

Restructuring reality: MGMT

by JACK OATMON

When I spoke to Andrew Vanwyngarden of Brooklyn-based psychedelic pop outfit MGMT on Feb. 1, he was, appropriately, perched on the precipice between two very different realities. Not only was it his 25th birthday that day, but he was waiting at the Canada-U.S. border, just about to go through customs.

His transitory status, both in time and location, is a curious metaphor for MGMT’s most recent album. Entitled Oracular Spectacular (incidentally, a thesaurus.com permutation of the phrase “mystical bullshit,” the original working title), it’s a brilliant, dreamy analogy to the phase shifts of a young person’s life.

“We recorded most of the album in this weird, industrial part of Brooklyn,” explains Vanwyngarden. “We were imagining a strange future where a lot of kids were getting together after some post-apocalyptic event and celebrating this new reality that’s forced upon them, but also just trying to survive.”

With the album, Vanwyngarden, along with bandmate Ben Goldwasser, wanted to communicate their feelings of both disownment and optimism about their future. “It’s analogous to feelings of post-graduation,” Vanwyngarden continues. “You’re in the real world for the first time and things are all confused and chaotic. It’s a similar thing, a restructuring of reality.”

Being almost exactly the same age as Vanwyngarden, I can’t help but ask whether that restructuring also speaks to the dramatic changes, both politically and technologically, that have occurred as we came of age.

“I think it’s getting more and more chaotic. When we wrote the album, we were also reading some new age apocalyptic literature and stuff about 2012, just getting in that weird mindset of being freaked out, but also excited, about what’s going on.”

The Internet also naturally plays into the dystopic, tribal imagery in the thought-provoking videos for the tracks “Electric Feel” and “Time to Pretend,” from the album. “We have very mixed feelings about the Internet,” admits Vanwyngarden. “Some of the lyrics on the album talk about dealing with life without all the technology, computers and whatever.”

The Luddite backlash comes as an inevitable reaction to going through our formative years before the panopticon of Web 2.0 was established and all its cultural implications began to permeate the youth. “It’s a crazy distraction, and also, a lot of Web sites the young kids are going to are so centred on your self-image and things about yourself. All these social networking sites, they could be used for revolutionary purposes, like drawing people together. But they’re used for more selfish goals. It’s a generation of people who are obsessed with themselves.”

Despite his trepidations, Vanwyngarden does not deny our own intimate connection to those technologies. “We need to think of a good name for our generation,” he declares. “Kids our age are right on the border. We’re not complete Internet kids, we have a certain connection with reality. We’re not completely apathetic about real-world things, but at the same time, we’re very involved with the Internet and cell phones and all that.”

Vanwyngarden also perceives and shares the generational nostalgia that naturally comes with associating our childhood with a time without Google or e-mail or MP3s. “I think there’s a very bittersweet feel to our music because of that.”

With Yeasayer and Valleys at la Sala
Rossa, Sun., Feb. 10, 9 p.m., $12