Back of the Rack: "Saturdays = Youth" by M83
By Will James Back of the Rack is a regular feature in which Indie writers consider albums that aren't particularly new, but we think deserve revisiting. According to the title of M83’s spring release, “Saturdays” equal “Youth.” According to the lyrics, so do Dreams, Stars, Highways, Galaxies, Owning the Sky and having intercourse while flying. On his spring ’08 release, songwriter Anthony Gonzalez struck out with the explicit goal of capturing teenage-hood in sound. Thus, the French artist’s latest work is notable both for this towering aspiration and the wooden clichés that prop it up. Gonzalez burns the potent incense of shoegaze and dream-pop in his séance to summon the ghosts of his boyhood (which, we can assume, are supposed to resemble the washed-out figures on the album’s cover). As a result, he gets the vividity of youth come through like sunlight through miles and miles of water. The vocals – his own, and those of guest-co-lead singer Morgan Kibby of L.A.’s The Romanovs – are always safely dissolved in tidal noise. His great success is the epiphany that “youth” sounds more My Bloody Valentine than My Chemical Romance. And, as in My Bloody Valentine, the lyrics play second fiddle to the noise they’re bundled in. At their best, the words follow the arc of a dream – a druggy reflection on teenage nights, warped and magnified by distance. At their worst, said dream is what results from falling asleep on the couch midway through “Sixteen Candles.” What you get is an album that, at first listen, excites the nerve for sublimity. But to try to engage it further is to accidently punch through a canvas of black ink and pinhole stars. Take “We Own the Sky.” The verse unfolds like a midnight ocean of keyboard whitecaps over a deep-sea bass drone, with tendrils of effervescent notes as maybe wind. Gonzalez’s weirdly-doubled voice seems to emanate from everywhere, hanging expectantly after every mid-sentence pause. M83 is first and foremost an electronic act, and Gonzalez’s hand at the switch – along with his eye for composition – is polished and artful. But then take what he’s saying: “Each shade of blue / Is kept in our eyes / Keep blowing and lightning / Because we own the sky.” And the chorus: “Secrets from the winds / Burnt stars crying.” Throughout, it’s unclear whether Gonzalez is drawing on his own memories, or some commercial notion of youth pushed by American television. Maybe we can chalk it up to the language barrier – this isn’t the first album where he could be accused of penning overblown and whimsical stuff. It follows, then, that the best moments on “Saturdays = Youth” are the ones with the fewest words. Take opener “You, Appearing,” and the penultimate “Dark Moves of Love.” The former is the fall down the rabbit hole. “It’s your face / Where are we? / Save me” circles round and round in a falsetto over swelling and subducting sheets of pink noise, marking the beginning of a sorely reminiscent dream. The latter is the bedlam of the dream dissolving – the climactic collapse of the teenage wonderland Gonzalez tried to construct in the nine previous tracks. After a long buildup, you can make out voices in the storm: “I will fight the time and bring you back!” These are powerful vagaries. As an ode to anything, like childhood or the 1980’s – the explicated aims of the album – they fall flat. But they have a great deal of value as a case study in nostalgia. The impressionism inherent in M83’s music – words and sounds alike – mirrors the hazy language of sentimentality and mysticism that characterizes our society’s way of viewing the past. In the end, it’s less an album about being a teenager than an album about thinking about being a teenager, complete with all the romance and idealization that comes with growing up and looking back. Something that’s sweet during a wistful drive, but best if not considered too closely. |
