M83

“On the last album, there was too much of me.” That’s how Anthony Gonzalez – the sonic auteur behind the sublime sound of M83 – describes the primary inspiration for his forthcoming album JUNK, to be released on April 8, 2016 by Mute. Highly anticipated, JUNK is not just M83’s first studio album in half a decade; it’s also the follow-up to Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming – which, upon release in 2011, placed M83 in the direct current of the mainstream. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming gained acclaim as Gonzalez’s masterpiece summation of all the elements and influences of his epic space-age future pop. It would also become the record that cemented M83’s mainstream breakout, driven by the global hit single “Midnight City.” Other standout tracks like “Outro” and “Wait” from Hurry Up… also became pop-culturally ubiquitous, taking on a life of their own as musical accompaniment for numerous TV shows and Hollywood blockbuster trailers. So why would Gonzalez try to remove himself from the follow-up to such a creative and commercial success? And furthermore supplant himself on JUNK with the surprising likes of Beck and Steve Vai. Wait, Steve Vai? The legendary virtuoso guitar hero who defined an era? On an M83 album? in 2016? With Beck, too? Read on…

On both Hurry Up… and the two years of triumphant world touring that followed it, Gonzalez served as M83’s musical architect and songwriter, but also its front man and primary vocalist – a role which he grew to find limiting. Gonzalez began thinking about the iconoclastic wizards behind the curtain that initially inspired him to make music. Suddenly he felt a renewed kinship to mysterious tinkerers like Boards of Canada, Tangerine Dream, and Aphex Twin; curator/musician magicians à la Brian Eno; and genre-expanding visionaries like Brian Wilson, Kevin Shields and Todd Rundgren. “Like them, I found I really prefer to stay behind the scenes,” Gonzalez notes. These were the role models for him to start making eccentric yet widescreen bedroom electronica in his own image, starting as a teenager in the late ‘90s in his not-exactly-music-hotspot hometown of Antibes on the French Riviera coastline. As a result, JUNK represents both a return to Gonzalez’s roots, and also a bold yet logical leap forward in M83’s artistic evolution. “I wanted to show different sides of me on this album,” he explains. “I wanted to come back with something more intimate, yet somehow with … less me!”

Read More