Amnesia - M83
M83's experimental years bridge nostalgic anthems to futuristic immersion on 'Fantasy'
M83 has released their latest album, Fantasy, and it has not disappointed. The French band, known for the breakout hits "Midnight City" and "Wait," has been around since the late 1990s, but it was their 2011 album ‘Hurry up, We're Dreaming’ that brought them into the spotlight. The whole album is a masterpiece in music, filled with soundscapes that are destined for the cinema. It's one of those albums that you'll always remember the first time you heard it.
Since Hurry Up, the band has had a varied career, producing soundtracks for films and experimenting with new sounds on their 2016 album, Junk. However, hints of new music came at the start of 2023, and the lead single "Oceans Niagara" showcased a clear steer back into what makes this band great. It takes all the elements of experimentation from the last decade and builds on Hurry Up to create soundscapes that sound more futuristic than nostalgic.
The album artwork features an alien, and you can imagine this music being the soundtrack of a journey into space. The atmosphere that M83 orchestrates on each track is nothing short of anthemic, with each song starting small and blooming into a world of sound.
While there's no track that matches the iconic levels of "Midnight City," tracks such as "Amnesia" come close and continue to showcase the talents of M83 in an electronic music scene that has changed a lot since they first started. Listening to this album, you can see a really clear and direct vision for what they wanted it to be, and it's an album that demands your full attention. This is not background music; it's something that needs to be listened to in the right headspace.
It has a real 80s feel about it in the synths, but once the track builds, it becomes huge and complex. It's a magnificent track that demonstrates M83's ability to create immersive atmospheres across a body of work. This band is a master at making music that needs to be listened to in a certain atmosphere, and Fantasy is no exception. It's an album that demands to be heard properly, and it's worth every moment of your time.