Artist of the Day: M83

M83 has garnered some serious respect after the release of their most recent album, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, and having the first single off of that album, "Midnight City," become a huge hit with electronic music fans everywhere. For most of these people though, M83 is a one-hit wonder, and the rest of the band's work is completely unknown. Who is M83? What was their music like before the present? It's actually a fantastically interesting musical history that's led to this point.

M83 is the brainchild of French multi-instrumentalist Anthony Gonzalez, who does a lot of recording for the band on his own. However, for the first two albums (M83; Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts), he was assisted by Nicolas Fromageau, and I think it's really interesting to note that these are M83's two biggest albums with post-rock fans. The first album that started to garner M83 more attention than these two smaller releases was Before The Dawn Heals Us, which was around the time he started to use the electronic aspect of his music in a more mainstream way: the layering became slightly less complex, and the more upbeat feel of his music began to show.

Sean's Top 10 Albums of 2011

10 | Giraffes? Giraffes! - Pink Magick

The demented and chaotic nature of Giraffes? Giraffes! third full length, Ping Magick, is accurately described in just about everything concerning the album except for the music. everything from the absurd track titles to the pretty pink and green explosion of an album cover captures everything that Pink Magick is all about. The band consists of nothing but a guitarist and a drummer, but the monstrosity of tracks such as "DRGNFKR" sounds like something that could not have been done by two musicians alone. Pick Magick is an extraordinary accomplishment for math rock and is easily one of the finest works to come out of this year.

Casey's End Of The Year Extravaganza

More than likely this is going to be a clusterfuck of information, so I'll keep this intro short. Below, I've put together a list of my favorite EPs, albums, and songs of 2011. My tastes have widened drastically this year, so much that I currently have over 9000 songs in my library just from 2011. While the top of my lists focus more on my customary pop punk and pop rock realms, the deeper cuts of my lists are full of albums that before this year I never would have expected to like. Fireworks, The Wonder Years, Childish Gambino, M83, Farewell Fighter, Yellowcard, SBTRKT, and many more can be seen below. For a Spotify playlist containing the songs of the year list, click right here.

Album Review: M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

The first album we've heard from Anthony Gonzalez in three years, and what a refresher. M83 comes roaring back, as much as a shoegaze band can, with Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, a diadem of a double album that easily exceeds the hype that was started for in back in June. The feel for the record is pretty true to the title - Gonzalez himself told Spin magazine that it's "mainly about dreams, how every one is different, how you dream differently when you're a kid, a teenager, or an adult". The album has a lot of great musical moments that connect to those visions of dreams that Gonzalez has, and adopt a mixture between the styles of Saturday = Youth and Before the Dawn Heals Us, with plenty of both synth-pop and dream-pop interchanged with the tracks, and plenty of variety to go around the 22-track double-album.