M83 - "Digital Shades, Vol. 1"

M83 - Coloring the Void (Mute 2007)

M83 - Digital Shades, Vol. 1 / Mute

Anthony Gonzalez is one of the cornerstones of the shoegaze revival of the new millennium (if there even is such a thing, so take that with a grain of salt). Though Audiversity tends to be kind towards artists who embrace the noise-as-melody aesthetic that The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride and the rest propagated in the early 90s, few are as namedropped quite as frequently as M83. With good reason: 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts stands in my mind at least as one of the most powerfully unified and emotionally dramatic albums of the past decade. As half of the architects behind its sprawling sound (the dearly departed Nicholas Fromageau being the other), Gonzalez gave both analog and digital noiseniks a chance to see where we'd come in the dozen years since Loveless was released.

2005's Before the Dawn Heals Us was a little questionable, in contrast. Though Fromageau had departed to work on his own projects and Gonzalez had opted to carry on the name for M83's third, most "epic" sounding album yet, I'm not sure having Nicholas around would've made much of a difference; they both loved Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness, after all. While their self-titled debut was a little muted (no pun intended) and Dead Cities was right on the mark for a balance between flair and function, Before the Dawn Heals Us was a city built on pop n' roll, stadium licks and ornate choruses seemingly born for the Big Time. In some ways, I liked it less for the very reasons I was supposed to like it more: Gonzalez chose to emphasize the telling rather than the showing.

With the Digital Shades series (and this is only the first, so it's possible that's a red herring), Gonzalez is returning to the ground that earned him the plaudits of the world's press in the first place. In theory, this is really only a warm-up to the "actual" album that's going to be hitting shelves early next year. But why wait when this album stands on its own? Despite artwork that is either his most careless or his most colorful yet (depending on your tastes), the sounds behind this album are the sounds of M83 at their best. There are no sweeping choruses to take you away on your flying bike, there are no silhouettes of E.T. in your basket, there are no metropoli powered solely by the cinematic opulence of a verse-chorus-verse structure to woo all the late-night romantics that somehow managed to catch this week's edition of "Subterranean." These are barebones field recordings, distant piano twinklings and vacant spaces in snowy fields on frosty nights. Basically, we're back to where we started.

That means that you're going to be hearing a lot of Brian Eno in this album. Gonzalez has said that at the time of these recordings he was hitting the krautrock and Eno's early ambient stuff pretty hard. It shows. "Waves, Waves, Waves" does not arrive on a majestic chariot of burning brightness. Instead, Gonzalez is establishing the mood and the direction in which this particular M83 recording is to travel. Waves, ever so gently these waves crash quietly ashore. You can hear them literally washing up on the beach as crabs wander carefully about. It's beautiful in its understatement, but there really isn't a whole lot happening.

If there's one thing M83 understands as well as anyone else, though, it's that a strategic set-up or a choice interlude can make for better listening. This album is no exception, because "Coloring the Void" proves to be one of the best songs here. Built on visions of the pearly gates, an angelic chorus repeats over swirling synths the kind of which this group is best known for. Gonzalez has used vocals both to his advantage ("Run Into Flowers") and disadvantage ("Moonchild") in the past, but here his echoing voice is fantastically placed and the track is a notable standout because of it.

"Sister (Part 1)" is another primarily ambient track, best used for passive rather than active listening. The birds on "Strong and Wasted" will sound familiar too, and it's once again this sort of thing that drives M83's best moments: More than anything else, M83 is an organic group. It may be driven by synthesizers, the percussion (absent from this release) may be pre-programmed, but the final product is always at one with nature. Sounds like a hippie thing to say I know, and maybe that's the best way to describe it. Digital Shades, Vol. 1 is an album for shoegazing hippies.

But it's also a lot simpler than peace and love and flowers in our gun barrels. M83 resonates on a multitude of levels that everyone from the basest hipster to the most accomplished academic can relate to. It's this genius that allows such a large audience to be able to appreciate Gonzalez's music. I think I'm going to take a hiatus from Audiversity for the foreseeable future. I had no idea moving without your parents' approval was so emotionally frustrating. I had no idea being mentally prepared to drive a U-Haul 14 hours across some of the most boring stretches of interstate in America wasn't going to be enough. I had no idea growing up worked out quite like this.

In this time of great personal tribulation, Anthony Gonzalez has released just the right album to keep me motivated. And unlike Before the Dawn Heals Us, here he doesn't have to say what I already know: I've got to go. I've got to get the hell out of here. Will this album knock critics dead? No. Will it top any year-end lists? Unlikely. But there's that cruel intangible of perfect timing and emotional vulnerability that you can't put in to words. It's what makes listening to music so essential not just to me but everyone else here on Audiversity. It's what makes writing about it even more so. I hope this hiatus is short so I can continue providing this site with insufficient words for great music and the wonderful people behind them, but if it's not and I wind up lost out in the wilderness wandering the far side of Lake Michigan, I want you to know it wasn't in vain. I just wanted to find my own strange path. I want to run into flowers.