2008 Woodie Awards
Review: M83
Matthew L. Reese
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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M83
Digital Shades Vol. 1
I wanted to review a rock album. I wanted something aggressive, something I could speed-shovel to. Instead, I have M83's Digitial Shades Vol. 1-the first in a series of ambient musings by the French electronic artist-playing softly over my speakers.
This, certainly, is not whiskey-soaked yelping music. This is traveling along a lunar path music, and it is executed in a very good way.
M83, fittingly named after a galaxy, has always recorded dream-like songs, although it was more in the shoegazer realm of things.
The second album, and last as a duo, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, was universally regarded as a milestone in that very genre of music made so popular by My Bloody Valentine. Anthony Gonzalez, the provocateur of M83, having split with bandmate Nicolas Fromageau, was then free to work at his own pace.
After completing the tour for the third album Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to slow down and create a work in a more minimal direction - à la Brian Eno. The results are this album. Recorded in 2006, Digital Shades is very much an Eno-esque ambient exercise, it also draws from krautrock - specifically Cluster and Klaus Schultze. Recorded in Gonzalez's home studio, it was decided that this would be an ongoing series separate of the "main" albums. In fact, Gonzalez is very nearly completed with the follow-up to Before the Dawn Heals Us and it should be released in early 2008. Alluding to the title, Digital Shades Vol. 1 and subsequent volumes will be released only as downloadable albums.
B
Digital Shades Vol. 1
I wanted to review a rock album. I wanted something aggressive, something I could speed-shovel to. Instead, I have M83's Digitial Shades Vol. 1-the first in a series of ambient musings by the French electronic artist-playing softly over my speakers.
This, certainly, is not whiskey-soaked yelping music. This is traveling along a lunar path music, and it is executed in a very good way.
M83, fittingly named after a galaxy, has always recorded dream-like songs, although it was more in the shoegazer realm of things.
The second album, and last as a duo, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, was universally regarded as a milestone in that very genre of music made so popular by My Bloody Valentine. Anthony Gonzalez, the provocateur of M83, having split with bandmate Nicolas Fromageau, was then free to work at his own pace.
After completing the tour for the third album Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to slow down and create a work in a more minimal direction - à la Brian Eno. The results are this album. Recorded in 2006, Digital Shades is very much an Eno-esque ambient exercise, it also draws from krautrock - specifically Cluster and Klaus Schultze. Recorded in Gonzalez's home studio, it was decided that this would be an ongoing series separate of the "main" albums. In fact, Gonzalez is very nearly completed with the follow-up to Before the Dawn Heals Us and it should be released in early 2008. Alluding to the title, Digital Shades Vol. 1 and subsequent volumes will be released only as downloadable albums.
B
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