Save me from the flames
Ok, so I've made a point of championing this band for a while now, and I'm back with more of their amazing work. M83 is essentially the creative work of one man, Anthony Gonzalez, a resident of Antibes, France. On their previous two albums, Gonzales also worked with Nicolas Fromageau, but for the new album, Before The Dawn Heals Us (released on the amazing French label, Gooom), the two have split to do their own thing, and M83 sees Gonzales going it alone (albeit with a handful of other musicians to flesh out some of the parts).
Their earliest work took on more a pastoral and sometimes ambient sound, with the use of silence playing a large part of their sound. Their second album, Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts, which was actually the first time I heard them, took on a much larger sound, dominated by massive synthesizers washing over the songs. On the new album, the quiet parts are still there, as are the synths, but most often the huge sound comes from guitars. There is also much more use of vocal parts, sung by Gonzales himself, as well as Lisa Papineau, spoken word parts by Kate Moran, and a children's choir (?!?). The layering of synths and guitars is sometims so massive, I'm surprised my stereo can handle the sound.
This song comes from the first single from the album, which also features a non-album track, and two absolutely genius remixes, courtesey of two MFR favorites, Boom Bip and Superpitcher. There's a video for the song, which you can watch here (it is included on the CD-single as well). The song is really a piece of work, just so huge sounding, and the lyrics are super-creepy (as are many of the songs on the album, like "Car Chase Terror" - very dark stuff). I highly reccomend playing this as loud as you can, because the effect of the layers upon layers of guitar and synths is somewhat mind-blowing.
I really can't reccomend the album enough, so pick up Let The Dawn Heal Us from our friends at Insound here - also check out the previous album, available here.
To top it all off, they're doing a huge US tour - this is one of the main reasons I decided to post this today, in the hopes of helping get people to see them - I've already got tickets for the April 14th show at the Bowery Ballroom, where they'll be supported by another MFR favorite, Ulrich Schnauss. If you like M83, I absolutely reccomend you check them out if they roll through your city - the tour is fairly extensive, with stops in Boston, New York, DC, Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto, Columbus, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, San Fran and LA. Expect the live show to be unreal.