M83?

In brief (and risking the wrath of the injured Spencer) -- I sense what they were thinking of when they came up with the song and enjoy that, but the end results are kinda flat. (See also most everything by the Killers.)

scene: mono, the glasgow bar, october 7, 2003. GRIMLY and his MATE, whose birthday it is, are sitting being morose in the corner.

MATE: so anyway, i was thinking ...
[the BARMAN puts a CD in the machine and a SONG starts up. it is buzzy and interesting]
MATE: ... and it's the most incredible idea in the world ever ...
[suddenly the SONG begins a beautiful weaving melody and a glorious series of crescendos]
MATE: and it's really, really important that we talk about it now otherwi ... [clang]
[MATE falls over as GRIMLY rushes past him, grabs the BARMAN by the throat and demands to know what this life-changing piece of music is. it turns out to be "run into flowers", and thus a new dawn in GRIMLY'S life begins. many of his friends receive copies of "dead cities" for their birthdays/christmas, including his MATE, who is so blown away he never remembers his big idea. everyone lives slightly more happily ever after than they would without the healing power of "run into flowers".]

well, something like that, anyway.

Righteousness knows no wounds!

Good on yer, that's something close to how I felt when I first heard "Soon." Dead Cities left me cold aside from the final track that just went on forever but did so interestingly. This is one reason why I'm so impressed with the new one, it just feels much more ON -- like leaping out of the speakers and enveloping me immediately on -- and the hyperdrama works whereas the previous one's efforts did not. It felt cold, sterile almost, like those Delgados mega-orchestrated albums that left me terribly cold. The sheer *awe* in which "Run Into Flowers" is regarded with by so many is impressive but I just don't feel it at all.

And then again -- "pure sublime tone and movement, rapturous and melancholy" = that Mogwai track to me. I mean, seriously, this is a great description! I'd just rather use it for another song! :-)

Somewhere way upthread, I compared M83's "Dead Cities" to Spacemen 3's "Playing With Fire". The latter has never been one of my fave S3 albums in part because the drum machines give it a glossy, synthetic quality which I think is unbecoming to S3 (live versions of the same songs are a completely different matter, though).

Similarly, tracks like "Run Into Flowers" and "0078h" have a glossy, overly-polished feel compared to the rawer "Before the Dawn ..." songs, in large part because more real instruments were used. So I can understand why some people would be (perhaps unexpectedly, in the case of someone like Ned) left cold by "Run Into Flowers".

(note: I'm not trying to get all psychoanalytic on him, or argue for the superiority of "real instruments" (yuck))

Furthermore, I would apply those exact criticisms to M83's tour opener, Ulrich Schnauss, who takes an approach to shoegazing that is approx 1000X glossier than anything M83 have done.

The Mogwai set sounds most special. I'm envious! :-) Glad I've seen them a couple of times, though.

ysi?

Give me grace and chemicals,
I want to run into.

i'd YSI it but hymn doesn't appear to be working with stuff bought in iTunes 6, so ... anyway, it's only 79p. go on, get it. it sounds, basically, like a great lost depeche mode track.

Bloc Party - The Pioneers (M83 remix)

http://s5.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=35BFRBNPNNTIA36WPDBFAVLDH5

GET DOWNLOADING, THE KIDS.

See, this way you will now see how great Bloc Party are. Wait, where are you going?

This is the best description of M83 I have ever read. Amazing!

so i got an e-mail -- in french -- a couple of days ago telling me all about m83's new "ambient" album. i was suspicious.

i just listened to the tiny extract -- 1'30" worth of new song -- on myspace (go on, you can guess the address).

i wept. i'm not joking. somehow the music he makes is hard-wired to my soul. it's not even a reaction i try to explain any more.

out on september 3 (in the US and france, anyway; not sure about the UK yet.) i have a feeling it might just pip jesu, trans am and low -- and the mute box set -- to the coveted "grimly album of the year" spot, and i've not even heard the fucker yet.

based on that minute and a half, though ... no, really.

ewan pearson has been working on this, apparently.

I sometimes forget how massively in love I was/have been/still am with M83 (esp. their debut and "Dead Cities..."). Thank you for my new-found anticipation for their/his next disc!

I am, however, doubly intrigued by grimly fiendish's high regard for Trans Am's latest. I'd read it was a return-to-form of sorts (personally, secretly hoping for a "Surrender To The Night" era resurgence of some kind sometime), but hadn't seen "Sex Change" held in such high regard elsewhere {which is my roundabout way of saying, tell me more! (please)}.

my sex change thred in all its glory

it's probably the best thing they've done, to be honest. it's more ... what's the word? "focused", perhaps ... than "surrender" (and certainly than "red line"), and certainly less knowing than "liberation" (which i actually think is enormously under-rated). it's like essence of trans am; all the ingredients distilled into an album of perfection.

really. it's that good. it's better than that. go get.

(how did "mi" become "my" there? grr.)

the lack of interest in this could also make me weep.

Mogwai on "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong" created a song which I still think is probably their finest effort, and nailed the crescendo/epic/lead melody combination SO perfectly, so rightly. It stands out still for me as an example of sublime, careful arrangement, of making sure everything is in its place, of huge scope and quiet, reflective detail. It's a song that makes me glad to be alive.

HAHA this is word-for-word pretty much what I think! I might have 'Kids Will Be Skeletons' just ahead of it for economy purposes, but it's a close-run thing.

just listened to "digital shades volume one". i was going to say it's like the wonder of the music is in some kind of inverse proportion to the shitness of the cover:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FrNVGI8iL._SS500_.jpg

but, actually, the more i look, the more i like. don't ask me why.

the music, though ... ah, my god. it's not an album proper -- it's more like a collection of fragments -- but it ends up like distilled essence of M83, and as such is in the orbit of perfection. there's none of the exultation of the last one; it's much more introspective (although, y'know, with M83 these things are relative) and almost painfully poignant in parts.

fundamentally: quite, quite exquisite.

it's less than 40 minutes, too, which probably means i'll listen to it more than some of the other stuff. in fact, i think i'm going to listen again now. sleep? fuck that.

(a small but very tired part of me now wishes i'd gone to sleep instead of staying up drinking whisky, listening to M83 and reading irvine welsh.)