One Liner: Atmospheric electro and dance, with that one big "Midnight City" song.
Wikipedia Genre: synth-pop, shoegaze, dream pop, post-rock, ambient, electronic rock
Home: Antibes, France
Poster Position: Level 2 (6)
Weekend Two Only.
Sunday.
Thoughts: They were last at the Festival in 2016, although I don't think I saw the set.
I have a great memory of a Girl Talk show years ago, where he mixed in "Midnight City" as the fruition of a build-up and drop, and it worked so freaking well I levitated. Girl Talk was amazing. I wish that guy still did festival sets and was just plugged into a slot at every ACL. You know "Midnight City," it is far and away the biggest hit from this dude. 2011 song still getting airplay today.
That song is from 2011's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, which is pretty cool for being kind of dreamy atmospheric synth pop mixed with dance tracks. It is a kind of schizo album, in that many tracks are super chill and relaxing ("Splendor," for example) and then others get you all hyped up to jam out ("Ok Pal," for example). It is a double-disc, for some reason, and so he could have left a song or three off of it, but it has a cool sound. The other hit from the album, and his second most listened-to track on Spotify, is "Wait," which was used to high comedy in some commercial I saw where two kids were about to kiss. Ah yes, this one. 310.5 million streams for the actual song.
I like that commercial. Like most, I'd never heard of the band until this 2011 album, but it looks like they've been making music for a while. 2008's Saturdays = Youth, 2007's Digital Shades Vol. 1, 2005's Before the Dawn Heals Us, 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, and 2001's M83. Wikipedia shows that Saturdays = Youth was a breakout album for them, but I'm not feeling it much either. It isn't bad, just kind of sounds like Cure b-sides covered by a stinky cheese purveyor.
Creepy ass video. But the song has 879.6 million streams on Spotify (!!!), so it is up there in the streaming stratosphere. The band is a French guy named Anthony Gonzalez (and used to also include another French guy named Nicolas Fromageau, who has the best French last name I've heard in the last ten minutes. That name sounds like a beret-wearing stinky-cheese salesman if I've ever heard one.)
That song is from 2011's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, which is pretty cool for being kind of dreamy atmospheric synth pop mixed with dance tracks. It is a kind of schizo album, in that many tracks are super chill and relaxing ("Splendor," for example) and then others get you all hyped up to jam out ("Ok Pal," for example). It is a double-disc, for some reason, and so he could have left a song or three off of it, but it has a cool sound. The other hit from the album, and his second most listened-to track on Spotify, is "Wait," which was used to high comedy in some commercial I saw where two kids were about to kiss. Ah yes, this one. 310.5 million streams for the actual song.
The group is named after the galaxy M83, not the Soviet M-class submarine, the smoke grenade, the US copy of the German Butterfly bomb used in WW2, or the Michigan highway, all of which also share that name.
After those, 2014's You and the Night is an instrumental album that was apparently the soundtrack for a movie called Les Rencontres d'après minuit, which has the following plot, according to Wikipedia. "Around midnight, a young couple and their transvestite maid prepare for an orgy. Their guests will be The Slut, The Teen, The Stud and The Star. As each guest arrives they tell their story, most of them too fantastical to believe. Once the guests have shared their stories the hosts tell their story of immortality and a love that crosses death. As the orgy begins fantasy and reality combine until the group is both watcher of and participant in their own liaisons." Mmmmkay. The soundtrack is fine, just atmospheric synth twiddling.
The next album, 2016's Junk, just does very little for me. Super 80's referential, with kind of a winking lean on outdated sounds in the midst of the synths and machine noises. I just don't care for it. I played "Do it, Try It" when I reviewed the album, so here is the other popular tune from this album, called "Go! (feat. Mai Lan)"
Pretty snappy little tune and all, I just still don't care about hearing it anymore. In 2019, they released another album soundtrack, this one for something called Knife & Heart, which sounds like a lovely film. The first line of the Wikipedia Plot is thus: "A young man dances in a nightclub. He spots a man wearing a leather mask and goes with him to a room to have sex. A black bird flies past him as he follows the masked man, who later ties him to a bed and kills him with a dildo containing a concealed, retractable blade." Hoo boy. After that you get 2019's DSVII and then 2023's Fantasy. Neither of those albums boast much in the way of big songs - only one song cracks 4 million streams on either. This is "Oceans Niagra," from that 2023 album.
After those, 2014's You and the Night is an instrumental album that was apparently the soundtrack for a movie called Les Rencontres d'après minuit, which has the following plot, according to Wikipedia. "Around midnight, a young couple and their transvestite maid prepare for an orgy. Their guests will be The Slut, The Teen, The Stud and The Star. As each guest arrives they tell their story, most of them too fantastical to believe. Once the guests have shared their stories the hosts tell their story of immortality and a love that crosses death. As the orgy begins fantasy and reality combine until the group is both watcher of and participant in their own liaisons." Mmmmkay. The soundtrack is fine, just atmospheric synth twiddling.
The next album, 2016's Junk, just does very little for me. Super 80's referential, with kind of a winking lean on outdated sounds in the midst of the synths and machine noises. I just don't care for it. I played "Do it, Try It" when I reviewed the album, so here is the other popular tune from this album, called "Go! (feat. Mai Lan)"
Pretty snappy little tune and all, I just still don't care about hearing it anymore. In 2019, they released another album soundtrack, this one for something called Knife & Heart, which sounds like a lovely film. The first line of the Wikipedia Plot is thus: "A young man dances in a nightclub. He spots a man wearing a leather mask and goes with him to a room to have sex. A black bird flies past him as he follows the masked man, who later ties him to a bed and kills him with a dildo containing a concealed, retractable blade." Hoo boy. After that you get 2019's DSVII and then 2023's Fantasy. Neither of those albums boast much in the way of big songs - only one song cracks 4 million streams on either. This is "Oceans Niagra," from that 2023 album.
That one gives me a little hope that this show wouldn't just be boring atmospherics and then "Midnight City." It still isn't an amazing song or anything, but at least it isn't that soundtrack for the dildo murder movie.
So then where do I stand on seeing this one play live? Hearing good things from people I trust about music makes me think that I should see the live show and experience the action in person. Even if I know I won't listen to this music otherwise at home, maybe I'll just bite the bullet and go jam out in the crowd. We'll see how the schedule shakes out.
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