
I don’t know if its just the week I've had but ‘healing’ is how I'd describe the effects of an hour spent listening to the 80s influenced atmospheres of M83. The brain behind the band (named after a spiral galaxy by the way..) is one Anthony Gonzalez who brought M83 to life with former band member Nicolas Fromageau in Antibes in 2001. The two went their separate ways after the second album - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts - two years later so now Gonzalez pretty much gets to take all the credit.
The album I’d like to draw your attention to is Saturdays = Youth. Intensely teenage in outlook but skilfully put together, the album was recorded with Ken Thomas (who has worked with Sigur Rós, The Sugarcubes, Cocteau Twins and Suede) and Ewan Pearson (who produced for Tracey Thorn, The Rapture and Ladytron) and its summery, youthful vibes are just what is required on a dull, grey January day when your belt is depressingly post-Christmas tight and your budget even tighter.
The first track ‘You Appearing’ is a soft sunrise of a tune which doesn’t go anywhere in particular but is so heart-warming you can almost feel the rays of a glorious summer sun somewhere hot and hopeful waking up your every cell. ‘Kim and Jesse’ is quite New Order-ish (although that could just be the synths) but combined with a certain French ‘je ne sais quoi’ it’s much lighter and more fun than Madchester style would allow. ‘Graveyard Girl’ is just pure teenage angst, an intense track broken up in the middle by a Cameron Diaz-a-like reciting lines about poetry, stars, being kissed and "I'm fifteen years old and I feel its already too late to live." The track gives you that rush of emotions of those uncomfortably glorious years of puberty, ending on a hazy, hopeful high reminiscent of a time when gas bills were irrelevant and thousands of pounds worth of debt just a twinkle in your greedy eye. ‘Colours’ is kind of a filler track but a good one, more buttercream than orange marmalade - instrumental until the end, it has the kind of tribal beat that reminds me of Zero 7 albums and going off into a state of supreme happiness at one of the side stages at a festival.
When Up! begins it sounds for a moment like French hiphop but this is swiftly enmeshed with some serious Goldfrapp vibes, dominated all the way through by a catchy, strong synth line and lifted by the melody and the playful lyrics: 'if clean my rocket we'll go flying today.' Highway of Endless Dreams, a flowing, pulsing, builder of a tune finishes with one hell of a crescendo and Dark Moves of Love almost sounds like a guitar band at the start, working through an emotional middle then ending with something surprisingly like a church organ which then makes up the entirety of Midnight Souls Still Remain.
The album is all about those teenage dreams where anything is possible - the kind of hopefulness and self-belief unscathed by bitterness and adeptly expressed by Gonzalez via light and youthful vocals and a cunning use of synths. By the time I’d listened all the way through I felt blissfully unaware of the rain pelting at the window and gloriously calm, like I'd just virtuously completed a meditation class without getting a fit of the giggles or accidentally shouting ‘bollocks’ to break up the silence. All in all an elevating experience.
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