Music Production - Details
| when: |
Fri 24 October |
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| Event title |
Forever Presents: M83, Channel One, The Domino State |
| Where: |
Vicar Street - Dublin |
| Category: |
Gigs |
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VICAR ST, DUBLIN
TICKETS: €
23.00
INCLUDES BOOKING FEE. OVER 18'S
This show is brought to you in association with DEAF 2008 (Dublin Electronic Arts Festival). This show is not to be missed!
What you need to know about M83 and the new album 'Saturdays = Youth':
For
most of us, our teenage years were an awkward time full of embarrassing
moments we'd rather forget. For M83's chief star-gazer Anthony
Gonzalez, however, his adolescence turned out to be the most important
period of his life, one he looks back upon with great affection. Now,
he's made it the defining theme of his enchanting new album,
Saturdays=Youth.
'I loved being a teenager,' says Gonzalez, who, at
26, only stopped being one seven years ago. 'That's when I discovered
music and started to take drugs and make parties with my friends. I
really started to discover new things. Nowadays I would like to be a
teenager again.'
The idea of youth – wasted, gilded or otherwise –
has featured prominently in M83's music. From early fumblings like 'At
The Party' on 2001's self-titled debut to the bliss-fuzz of 'Teen
Angst' from 2005's breakthrough album Before The Dawn Heals Us, the
French producer's dramatic space-rock tends to evoke the innocence and
wonder of this hormonally charged time. But Saturdays=Youth is his most
explicit celebration yet of how it feels to be dazed, confused and 15
years old. 'Saturday is definitely the coolest day of the week for a
teenager and that's the reason Saturday is in the title,' he says, as
if it needed explaining. 'Saturday always reminds everyone of their
youth.'
The record marks a change in a friendlier, pop-shaped
direction for M83. After touring Before The Dawn Heals Us around the US
with his band for much of 2005, Gonzalez decided to give the noisy rock
side of things a rest. 'Those live shows were heavily electronic and
electric at the same time, so it was intense,' he says from his home in
Antibes in the south of France. 'I wanted to do something soft and
quiet that was quite different from my previous record.'
In 2006,
Gonzalez started work in his home studio on material that would become
Digital Shades Volume 1 and Saturdays=Youth. The former, a collection
of ornate ambient pieces, was released with little fanfare to critical
acclaim last October, whetting appetites for M83's fifth album. But
fans expecting more of the same would be disappointed – Gonzalez
already knew what he wanted to do with Saturdays=Youth: 'I wanted to
make the record sound really Eighties.'
He succeeded, of course. If
the doomy synthetic romance of his earlier work hinted at a fetish for
Eighties goth staples such as Sisters of Mercy and the Cure, this
album's chiming astro-pop finds Gonzalez taking a stroll on the sunnier
side of the decade. Serene numbers such as 'Kim and Jessie', 'Graveyard
Girl' and 'Up!' are haunted by Kate Bush and the Cocteau Twins. The
dulcet female voice on the album belongs to Morgan Kibby, singer in an
LA band called the Romanovs. Gonzalez was introduced to Kibby by his
film-director friend Eva Husson, for whose forthcoming feature, Tiny
Dancer, he has composed the soundtrack. 'I went to Morgan's MySpace
page and I got a crush on her voice – it's very soft and clear. So I
asked her to sing on my record,' he says. 'You can hear that she has
Eighties influences as well – this record is all about Eighties
influences.'
He's serious, too. The red-haired Molly Ringwald
lookalike on the sleeve? That's intentional. Gonzalez says his main
influences for the album are English bands like Tears For Fears and
Cocteau Twins, as well as classic John Hughes teen movies such as The
Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. 'On this record I wanted to have
the feeling of a teenager mixed with this period of the Eighties,' he
says. 'I also wanted 11 different-sounding songs on the record – none
of the songs sound the same.'
That might be true, but they each
sound distinctly, unmistakeably M83. With its jagged Simple Minds riffs
and punk-funk breakdown, nine-minute slow-burner 'Couleurs', the first
single, is an epic slab of emotional Balearic disco. Sombre closer
'Midnight Souls Still Remain' could have slipped off Angelo
Badalamenti's score for David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Dream-drone
stunner 'Highway Of Endless Dreams' should give Kevin Shields cause for
concern, while digital kiss 'We Own the Sky' distils the essence of
Slowdive into five minutes. Best of all is 'Kim and Jessie', the first
proper M83 pop song. 'A lot of people always tell me that M83 is always
about melancholy music, so I wanted to write something happy with
hooks, a bit kitsch,' he says. 'The lyrics are about two teenage girls
having a drug experience.'
Producers Ken Thomas and Ewan Pearson
assisted Gonzalez with the sound of Saturdays=Youth. He'd not worked
with a producer before but, wanting to explore new techniques, chose
the veteran Thomas for his ability to give the music that particular,
'big' sound: 'I just told him that I wanted it to sound like an
Eighties band with a lot of reverb.' Thomas has produced albums by
Sigur Ros and Clinic, and cut his teeth on outré acts like Psychic TV
and Alien Sex Fiend more than 20 years ago. For this album, Gonzalez
recorded away from home for the first time, setting up base in
Rockfield Studios in south Wales for a week or so. Making music under
pressure proved to be a rewarding experience. 'It was the perfect place
to work, so peaceful in the country.'
Meanwhile, Berlin-based
British dance producer Ewan Pearson, who's overseen recent LPs by
Tracey Thorn and the Rapture, gave M83 a smooth, modern edge. 'The idea
was to have the sound of the Eighties and at the same time have the
sound of nowadays,' says Gonzalez. 'But what I really like about this
album is that it sounds like nothing that's around now. Nothing has the
same ambience.'
Having taken a couple of years off from touring,
Gonzalez is looking forward to getting M83 back on the road and playing
these new songs live. 'What's cool now is that with all the M83 records
there are a lot of different kinds of songs and atmospheres. I can't
wait to play everything live, especially the new record.'
That promises to be quite a show. In the meantime, we have Saturdays=Youth to savour
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| Venue |
Vicar Street |
| Homepage: |
No Homepage available |
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| Street: |
Thomas Street |
| ZIP: |
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| City |
Dublin |
| Country: |
IE |
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Sorry, no description available |
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