Fun fact: the majority of my papers’ theses freshman year I came up with while listening to M83’s “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.”
And now here we are, my senior year, and M83 finally announced a release date for their new album, “Junk” (it’s out April 8th). From the sounds of the first single they put out from it, “Do It, Try It,” it seems a long way from the likes of “Midnight City,” and the rest of the night-timey, universe-expanding, thesis-inspiring songs on their 2011 album.
This is absolutely not me putting “Junk” down before it’s even out. This song is a jam and a half. Starting out with the definitive vocoder voices definitively telling me to “DO IT, TRY IT” (a perfect week 9 adage, I might add), juxtaposed with the honky-tonk bouncy piano, M83 (from the wondermind of Anthony Gonzalez) has not lost their creative spark.
My head bobs to the honky-tonk. The simple bob would be enough, but no, in comes the quintessential M83 synth and yelling lyrics showering up me. The head bobbing turns into full body bobbing (really more like flailing). I’m transported into the crowd outdoors, thousands of us yelling and jumping. Before I lose control, the piano returns to the forefront, bringing my body back to stasis—it is a song of my moods: calm, frenzied, pulsing, flowing.
A human made and computer made concoction, the persistent DOITTRYITDOITTRYIT builds into a frenzy until, like most of the beauty of M83’s work, it is gone into the air, and I’m left with only the feeling that, yes, something wild happened here.
('16, American Studies) is from Los Angeles and probably has more nicknames than you. She enjoys theatre-y things, cats, and her ukulele.