The minute I heard M83 — I think it was on some Saturday night eclectic mix on KRCW — I was pretty much effing hooked. There’s actually just one guy behind it all, Anthony Gonzalez, who has spent the past 10 years or so masterfully compiling all his 80s and shoegaze and songwriting genius into one album after another. And every time I watch the video for “Kim and Jessie”, I can’t help but feel, as comedian Sam Kinison put it in one of his many moments of insight regarding the opposite sex, like I’m ‘watching tape from behind enemy lines’ and getting a peek into the brain of the female psyche through a pair of extremely cute yenta-looking, bi-curious roller skaters. Songs like this and “We Own the Sky” are obviously indebted to the decade hipsters were so quick to dismiss during the era of grunge and alt-rock, while “Skin of The Night” channels both the melodies of Duran Duran and Phil Collins’ drum set from No Jacket Required into something both should be envious of. Sure, with a title like Saturdays=Youth and Gonzalez’ own admittance that the title simply means that ‘Saturday is definitely the coolest day of the week for a teenager, and that’s the reason Saturday is in the title’, it’s obvious who Anthony is aiming for in his demographic. But unlike a lot of music crowding the youth market nowadays, M83 is a sound unto its own, nostalgic yet unpretentious in conjuring up the best the 80s (with the help of today’s programming standards). Step into the time warp on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.
