M83 have introduced new album ‘Fantasy’ and shared its first single ‘Oceans Niagara’. Test it out beneath together with our interview with frontman Anthony Gonzalez.
The Paris-via-Los Angeles challenge’s ninth album is due out on March 17 by way of their very own Different Suns label. This marks their first file since 2019’s ‘DSVII’ – a video-game impressed sequel to 2007’s ‘Digital Shades Vol. 1’.
Gonzalez dove deep into an ‘80s-inspired wonderland for the backdrop of ‘Fantasy’, as showcased by first single ‘Oceans Niagara’. A bombastic, widescreen synth-pop smash, it recollects early M83 album ‘Earlier than The Daybreak Heals Us’ and indicators a return to his roots.
The monitor’s official video additionally sees Gonzalez teaming up along with his brother and filmmaker Yann on an M83 music video for the primary time, introducing a grotesque, monster-like determine with deformed facial options that Gonzalez mentioned will develop into an integral a part of the ‘Fantasy’ universe and adorns its album paintings.
“These days we now have to indicate our face, to take selfies and present ‘our true self’,” Gonzalez informed NME. “I wished to create this monster with unhappy eyes and an unsightly face, distant from common life. On a regular basis life bores me to demise, you recognize? I wish to maintain dreaming, I wish to maintain having fantasies about worlds that I don’t know and creatures I don’t perceive, and that’s the story behind this file.”
Gonzalez spent everything of 2021 within the studio with longtime bandmate Joe Berry and producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Paramore, Wolf Alice), taking the time to make sure that the brand new materials landed in the precise spirit.
“I wished to return again with an album that had a band really feel,” Gonzalez defined. “The thought was to make music in a room with musicians and jam round and see what occurred.”
He continued: “We gathered in a room day by day, and we simply created music. On the finish, we had sufficient materials to show all these jams into an album. I actually wished to create an album that performs properly reside and interprets properly on stage. It was about going again to my roots, which is extra shoegaze-y, guitar-like, ‘80s sound.”
Gonzalez described ‘Fantasy’ as “a present to myself,” and mentioned the pressures on younger artists to promote themselves and continuously create. He additionally defined how the overwhelming success of 2011 album ‘Hurry Up We’re Dreaming’ and its hit single ‘Midnight Metropolis’ made him draw back from the business facet of music.
“I made an album with out the stress of promoting information,” he mentioned of his ninth LP. “I really feel extraordinarily fortunate to be in my place the place I could make information like this. It received’t discuss to the viewers that likes albums like ‘Hurry up, We’re Dreaming’ or songs like ‘Midnight Metropolis’, however it offers me pleasure in what I’m doing. It’s essential to keep away from the stress of economic wants.”
For Gonzalez, the newest period of M83 and the creation of ‘Fantasy’ is one which sees his ambitions and his world getting smaller, permitting himself to shun conventional concepts of success and the pressures of modernity to create music extra true to himself and with a singular imaginative and prescient.
“That is how the world goes,” he informed NME. “All people needs to earn more money, be extra profitable, have extra followers. The extra I see that on this planet, the much less I wish to achieve success. If I may reside in a cave with just some musical devices, just a few books and a DVD participant, I’d be very pleased. I don’t like to indicate myself.”
He added: “It’s clearly good to have success – I’m not gonna deny it – however I’m not the sort of artist who’s going to be reside day by day on social media and attempting to indicate my private life. Truly, I discover it fairly miserable and it exhibits quite a lot of unhappiness to me.
“It’s essential for me to remain grounded and to not attempt to obtain an excessive amount of in the best way that I did with ‘Hurry Up We’re Dreaming’. It was nearly an excessive amount of for me, you recognize? Perhaps I didn’t deserve it, and possibly I’m only a small indie artist that wishes to make small indie albums.”
Whereas proving ‘escapist’, ‘Fantasy’ can also be mentioned to be the artist’s most private album but. How do these two seemingly oppositional states marry up?
“It’s private as a result of I reside in a bubble the place I simply watch outdated movies, take heed to outdated music, learn outdated books,” he replied. “I feel I actually battle with the fashionable world, to be trustworthy, and I tend to reject every thing that’s fashionable. There are such a lot of nice issues about new artwork varieties, and new new bands, new administrators, however someway I’m all the time drawn to older issues, older footage.
“It’s one thing that could possibly be a entice for lots of people, however for me, it’s a method to defend myself from this abundance of music and films and artwork that we get day by day. I’ve created this defend in opposition to fashionable issues. Like Netflix, for example.”
Summing up his present outlook, Gonzalez mentioned: “I don’t wish to speak about cash in music. I don’t wish to speak about my life. I simply wish to speak about forgotten worlds and goals and magic potions, and attempt to maintain my teenage years alive.”
He added: “As I grow old, I don’t have this rage to succeed. Whenever you’re 20 and also you begin your profession, you wish to conquer the world. This time, I simply need the world to neglect about me.”
‘Fantasy’ shall be launched on March 17 by way of Different Suns. Pre-order it right here and see its tracklist and paintings beneath.
1. ‘Water Deep’
2. ‘Oceans Niagara’
3. ‘Amnesia’
4. ‘Us And The Relaxation’
5 . Earth To Sea
6. ‘Radar, Far, Gone’
7. ‘Deceiver’
8. ‘Fantasy’
9. ‘Laura’
10. ‘Sunny Boy’
11. ‘Kool Nuit’
12. ‘Sunny Boy Half 2’
13. ‘Dismemberment Bureau’
M83 is ready to tour the album in the US later this yr, with European headline and competition dates following in the summertime. See the complete checklist of gigs beneath and go to right here for tickets and extra data.
APRIL 2023
10 – Phoenix, AZ – Van Buren
11 – Albuquerque, NM – Revel
13 – San Antonio, TX – Aztec
14 – Austin, TX – Stubbs
15 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Corridor
16 – Dallas, TX – Home Of Blues
18 – Nashville, TN – Marathon Music Works
19 – Atlanta, GA – Jap
21 – Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Corridor
22 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
23 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
25 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
26 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
28 – Montreal, QC – MTELUS
29 – Toronto, ON – Historical past
30 – Detroit, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre
MAY 2023
2 – Chicago, IL – Riviera Theatre
3 – Minneapolis, MN – Palace Theatre
5 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
6 – Salt Lake Metropolis, UT – Ogden Twilight
8 – Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Live performance Corridor
9 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
10 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo
11 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo
13 – Pasadena, CA – Simply Like Heaven Competition
14 – Pasa Robles, CA – Paso Robles Vineyard
16 – San Francisco, CA – Fox Theatre
17 – San Francisco, CA – Fox Theatre
20 – Guadalajara, MX – Corona Capital GDL
JUNE 2023
7 – Latvia, Sigulda Fort
8 – Lithuania, Lukiskes Jail
10 – Finland, Helsinki Sideways Competition
24 – Czech Republic, Metronome Competition
JULY 2023
7 – France, Beauregard Competition
AUGUST 2023
12 – Slovakia, Grape Competition
13 – Hungary, Sziget Competition
