.Remember Your Youth

M83 looks to the 1980s for inspiration.

A band named after a galaxy would sound like this.

M83 — abbreviation for the Messier 83 intermediate galaxy
— the (mostly) solo project from France’s Anthony Gonzalez, has
been upwardly gazing, when not strictly gazing at its shoes, since
2001. Gonzalez and then M83 partner Nicolas Fromageau released their
self-titled debut, but it wasn’t until 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas
& Lost Ghosts
that the band gained serious attention, as the
album’s overwhelming offering of half ambient/half punishing
electronica showed signs of genius. With Before the Dawn Heals
Us
, Gonzalez’s next effort, the promise was delivered, as he kept
his electronic roots and introduced more melody and, yes, more vocals,
soft and whispery if not absent altogether. The album’s monstrous
scope, a colossal undertaking of soft light and symphonic warmth, was
breathtaking.

Saturdays=Youth is a different animal. M83’s recent record
finds Gonzalez venturing deeper into the pop realm, even stating openly
that this collection of songs are a celebration of his teenage years
— the 1980s, adolescent love and, of course, the John Hughes
movies. (The album’s artwork tells the tale — amongst the
impossibly youthful angst and innocence frolicking on the lawn there’s
a dead ringer for Molly Ringwald.) Gonzalez doesn’t abandon his
previous romances — “Couleurs” is a dance track only he can
conjure and “Dark Moves of Love” and “Midnight Souls Remain” recall the
hypnotizing ambient work of his Digital Shades: Volume One
— but the pure pop songs, the compactly atmospheric jaunts of
grace, remain the most memorable. “Kim & Jessie,” “Skin of the
Night,” “Graveyard Girl” — songs for, and songs about, the high
school collective, those gazing hopeful and scared into the future and
forgetting to enjoy the present: the brains, the jocks, the basket
cases, the princesses and the criminals.

“Before I composed the album, I [wanted] to find a concept for it,”
Gonzalez says in his thick French accent. “I never worked on ’80s kind
of music before — I was trying to make a tribute for the period.
I think ’80s music … it’s one of the most important periods for the
music industry, because so many bands I love are from that period, like
Tears for Fears.”

He says his teenage years were, like they were for many of us, his
most formative. “I think it’s certainly one of the best periods in my
life, so far,” he says. “I have so many good memories about my teenage
years, I feel that I had the best friends ever with me. I discovered so
many beautiful things, new bands, new music, new movies. So when you’re
thirteen or fourteen, you discover so many new things. It’s like a new
world, and maybe [there is] something beautiful about it, the
innocence, that I really like. You feel unbeatable, you feel like
you’re the master of the world. You lose confidence when you grow up.
That’s what I love about being a teenager — you can do stupid
things, but you always think that it’s cool. It’s beautiful.”

While his intentions are sweet and admirable, one could imagine a
musician crafting a record based in ’80s lore that sounds much too
gee-whiz, over-the-top in nostalgia without ever really capturing the
experience, just the magnified highlights. “What was difficult was to
be sincere,” Gonzalez says about the writing process. “Because it
sounds very ’80s, it could’ve been too cheesy, too catchy. What was
important to me was to keep personal things in it, to make it personal.
To keep [my] identity in the album I guess that’s what was the most
difficult thing.”

While Gonzalez dabbled in Eno-like ambience for last fall’s
Digital Shades record, it’s been three years since Before the
Dawn
, a bit of time for an artist still ascending. “I like to take
my time to make an album,” he says. “It’s important for me to feel
confident with the songs. I like to take my time — I can be fast,
but there are some moments when I like to do nothing. Like during the
summer — I like to hang out with my friends and go the
beach.”

Gonzalez says that while M83’s touring extensively most of this year
in support of Saturdays=Youth, he’ll write on the road, as
usual, on his laptops and keyboards. (He says he’d like to release
another volume of Digital Shades by year’s end.)

“It’s difficult sometimes,” he says on writing on the road. “It can
be really exhausting on tour. I really prefer to compose music in my
own studio in the south of France, a quiet place where I feel confident
to write.”

Sounds nice.

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