The brain behind M83, 26-year-old Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez, sings softly over sweeping synth and guitar, sounding crisp and hopeful, yet poignantly nostalgic. The cover art for Saturdays=Youth, just released this April 15, looks just how the music sounds – a golden, summer landscape replete with beautiful young people who look like they could star in a Sofia Coppola film. Technically, the harmonies remain tonally bright and airy, rarely budging from major keys throughout the album. The effect is that of summer daybreak, but the lyrics suggest that the album may be entirely set at dusk or late at night. Contrasts like this make this album dynamic enough to live on after the hype period and relevant in a variety of contexts.
Producer Ken Thomas, who has also worked with the Cocteau Twins and Sigur Ros worked with Gonzalez on this album. These influences are more than evident in the harmonically lush, progressive quality (indicative of Sigur Ros’s work), as well as the definite 1980’s sway reminiscent of ethereal dream-poppers, The Cocteau Twins. The overall effect is that of organized melody liquefied and smoothed over like a watercolor painting. For use as background music, this M83 album works gorgeously. For fans of My Bloody Valentine, this brand of shoegaze offers some of the thickness but none of the distortion. For fans of the M83 of Before the Dawn Heals Us, expect the layering, but imagine the building instrumentation gathering and then being completely blended together in an entrancing mist.
Scattered through the lyrics are themes of shadowed longing and obsessions with dying young, making the optimistic sonic qualities resoundingly haunting. Even in the highly energetic second track, “Kim and Jessie,” which depicts a young couple “crazy about romance and illusion,” there are repeated shadows and mysteries. In the second single (and perhaps most Sofia Coppola-esque track), “Graveyard Girl,” a fifteen-year-old, gothic girl who feels that it’s too late to live “spits on summers and smiles to the night. / She collects crowns made of black roses / but her heart is made of bubble gum.” Despite the gloomy content, the heart of the song is hopeful (literally made out of bubble gum, perhaps in the fashion of a darker Lolita), if not just for the sheer beauty of the shimmering synthesized melody.
Although songs like the first single, “Couleurs,” can take more than six minutes to become interesting, the album in its entirety is ideal for both solitary headphone nights and picnics with lemonade close at hand.
Dance rock is old news, right? Franz Ferdinand and their clones are basically fighting to stay afloat in the constantly churning sea of party rockers hoping to reach Top 40 status. Signed to Modular (also the home of New Young Pony Club and The Presets), the Australian band, Cut Copy isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but they have done something revolutionary in its own sense: they have evolved naturally.
The March 22 release of In Ghost Colours was extremely hyped, partially due to the success of its predecessor, 2004’s Bright Like Neon Love, but also because of a string of popular remixes. Unlike many sophomore efforts, In Ghost Colours makes no attempts to rock more, be more progressive, or go more electronic. The music is simply organic and heartfelt, and despite being more accessible than any of their previous releases and having “Lights and Music” as a free track on iTunes, this album is no sell-out.
This album is at once intellectually stimulating and danceable. On the track “Far Away,” for example, Billy Idol and David Bowie influences surround synthesized, open-toned interludes typical of Discovery-era Daft Punk. On “Hearts On Fire,” Cut Copy’s rock sensibilities take a forefront until the highly arpeggiated, anthem-like chorus brings electronic instrumentation and an infectious melody to the forefront. Despite trite and sometimes melodramatic lyrics, the intricately wound instrumental construction is entertaining in itself throughout the album, constantly evolving in both smooth and shocking ways.
An interesting shift occurs in the album during the track, “Strangers in the Wind,” which opens with bluesy guitar twangs slowly being overshadowed with glockenspiel and synthesized chords. Then, all of a sudden, the contextually confusing guitar riff is gone and it is a Cut Copy song once again, ending with a synth solo. Although this track strikes me as the weakest on the album, it stands as an example of how an experimental blues-rock-electro track can sound like it was produced by Italians Do It Better and yet still belong on a Cut Copy album.
I would recommend tracks such as “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found” (despite a rather blatant rip-off of Vitalic) and “Out There On the Ice” as showcases of Cut Copy’s evolved and more comfortably positive sound. Tracks like these, with prominent bass and a slightly more disco-influenced sound, display Cut Copy’s strengths to their full potential. However, the rather lethargic interludes do speak for the diversity of this album, as well as a more theatrical and strikingly visual feel (think of an Of Montrealian Satanic Panic in the Attic-era brand of visual appeal).
It is difficult for me to discern where this album will eventually be pigeonholed. It is a pop gem as well as a quality dance album, but it plays to so many aesthetics that is has a distinctly malleable quality. Regardless of its place within the growingly pretentious indie rock and electronic crowds, this album has a charm in its sincerity, brightness, and lack of pretense. Play this album all summer; play it loud. Cut Copy - "Out There On the Ice" mp3 Cut Copy - "Nobody Lost, Nobody Found" mp3
Views expressed are solely those of the author. Available mp3's are earcandy only. Please support your favorite artists by buying the tracks you find here. If you want me to take down anything, or if you have any suggestions on what I should write about, let me know.
The brain behind M83, 26-year-old Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez, sings softly over sweeping synth and guitar, sounding crisp and hopeful, yet poignantly nostalgic. The cover art for Saturdays=Youth, just released this April 15, looks just how the music sounds – a golden, summer landscape replete with beautiful young people who look like they could star in a Sofia Coppola film. Technically, the harmonies remain tonally bright and airy, rarely budging from major keys throughout the album. The effect is that of summer daybreak, but the lyrics suggest that the album may be entirely set at dusk or late at night. Contrasts like this make this album dynamic enough to live on after the hype period and relevant in a variety of contexts.
