One of the nicer events of 2008 so far is the return/re-energising of M83. Nice to be able to have a chat with him for Fact in June of this year:
M83 was born made. I mean, if you record total-immersion shoegaze electronica with Ewan Pearson and are named after a face-on spiral galaxy receding from us at around 337 km/sec, you have to paddle pretty hard to keep praise-free. Still, his newish-one Saturdays=Youth plays its strong hand well, holding down the expansive scope of his wonderful previous albums and adding stuff like “focus” and “tunes”. Themed around Antibean Anthony Gonzalez’s rosy ideas of 80s teenage life, it sounds like the soundtrack to a film about summer rain and sine waves and buried treasure and sexually charged all-day detentions and friends with dads with yachts, and it’s pretty cool because it sounds a bit like the Cocteau Twins without being the Cocteau Twins.
How does it feel to be touring the new album?
It’s refreshing! ‘Till The Dawn was drawn how I wanted it to be – it was very noisy, very huge and very epic. It was very… dreamy. Digital Shades [] was not a full studio album, it is more of a side project – I just wanted to explore the ambient sounds that I love. Saturdays=Youth is different. It is – um – sturdy.
How do you mean?
Each time I try my best to make the album to sound as I want it to sound. It’s important to make something different. Everything should be something different to what came before.
This is a very rose-tinted look at the 80s. Is it fair to call it a tribute record?
Yes, yes! It is a tribute record, yes. I mean it’s not only a… “covers record”, a machine record. It is also very personal to me, which it is important to be. That decade, it has an identity that is close to me.
It’s certainly a genuine affection.
Yes, no… I tried to avoid irony all together. It was exactly what I didn’t want to make. There was no irony at all.
Unlike most consciously “80s” records, Saturdays… doesn’t seem at all ironic.
Many make funny sounds about the 80s, but I don’t. For me, I cannot be funny about what I love. Music is very serious for me! I grew up in the 80s, so I grew up listening to this music. It has a great drama for me, things like Cocteau Twins and Tears for Fears. It was a totally new music then, and that is very thrilling to hear, even now. They proposed a new sound. Good music to be a teenager.
It’s – uh – ironic that you chose 80s music to soundtrack your “teenage” album, isn’t it? I mean, without pointing out the obvious, you were a nineties kid.
Ha, yes! I discovered music really when I was 13, 14 – when you are young enough for love, but old enough to look around you. The first music that called me was this very brushed thing, not the music that surrounded me. You could say my first crush was on Blue Nile! That was what made me feel really special, when production just sounded so perfect.
Speaking of production, you hooked up with some interesting people for this record. What was it like working with Ken Thomas [who was behind Cocteau Twins, PiL and Alien Sex Fiend] and Ewan Pearson?
It was fantastic. It was my first time working with “producers” – before it was just me and a sound engineer, but this time I wanted to try something new and tap into his experiences. Sharing music: I love that idea, man, and I love to share music, especially with Ewan Pearson and Ken Thomas. They are fully different backgrounds – the way that Ewan looks at electronic music is just so forward thinking it is unbelievable, but Ken Thomas has so much experience – he has just worked with so many of my favourite bands. As with so much, the combination is the exciting thing.
Morgan Kibby’s vocals on Saturdays work out really well, eh? How did that hook up come about?
Yes, I was very pleased to work with her. I like cinema and film very much, and she works as a singer for movie trailers [Morgan sang on the trailers for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Lady In The Water] – a director friend actually put us in touch. I listened to her on the internet, and she sounded to me like a combination of Kate Bush and Liz Fraser. I was in love!
What effect do you want to have on the bodies of your listeners?
Oh, er… I like to drive very much, and I think of my music as driving music. So it should feel like driving very, very fast in a very good car. Or maybe in no car at all.
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