MY VIEW
Music: 'Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts' by M83

By Joshua Huff
Special to The Advertiser

The Verdict: THE RATINGS 5 — Outstanding: Add it to your collection now. A must-have. 4 — Great: Buy it or rent it — definitely listen to it. 3 — Good: Worth listening to despite some flaws. 2 — Fair: Unless you're a fan of the group or singer, don't bother. 1 — Poor: Save your money (and your ears).

Release: July 27, 2004 (released everywhere but in the U.S. last year)

Style: "Shoegaze"/ambient/experimental pop/rock

Rewind: Track No. 2, "Unrecorded"; track No. 3, "Run Into Flowers"; track No. 10, "0078h"

Skip: Track No. 1, "Birds"; track No. 4, "In Church" (short instrumental pieces)

My view: In the past couple of years, French duos such as Air and Cyann and Ben have gotten a fair amount of fame in the independent music scene, playing airy, atmospheric pop. Daft Punk continues to put out incredibly danceable (dare one say ... disco?) albums, while other French outfits, like Tahiti 80 and Phoenix, have also produced records full of catchy hooks that have become the soundtracks for traveling along coastal highways.

It is no surprise, then, that another French duo, M83 (Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau), has put out one of the best sounding albums in recent memory.

With their sophomore release, "Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts," M83 attempts to update the "shoegaze" music genre, which was the musical movement of the late '80s and early '90s in which bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive would layer massive amounts of distorted guitars to create an ethereal wall of warm sound. The genre got its name because the artists tended to stare at their feet at their live shows as they manipulated the tons of guitar pedals that morphed their guitar sounds.

"Dead Cities" is a staggeringly beautiful record. The first song, "Birds," is really just an introductory track built upon samples of birds singing, synthesizers and computer-treated vocals. "Unrecorded," the first song of the album, is full of crackling analog synthesizers and crescendos, building a number of rising keyboard lines on top of each another until the song reaches a somewhat frenetic pace, at which point the song slows considerably and becomes an ambient patch of music.

"Run Into Flowers," the album's first "single," is one of the few tracks with vocals, and definitely one of the more "upbeat" tracks. The album's most unique track is "America," which matches an agitated vocal sample with the heaviest synthesizer instrumentation on the album. The song may reflect the duo's view of American foreign policy, because the musicians worked on "Dead Cities" during the first few days of the war in Iraq. "0078h" is a track with a relatively quick tempo and shows M83's flexibility as a band and may also be a welcome respite from the slower tracks for some listeners.

Enough cannot be said about this record without sounding absolutely redundant. It is an exercise in beauty. The incredible thing about "Dead Cities" is its ability to make the listener feel without using words — imagine being outside on a cold day, but wrapped up in a huge blanket of sound. This album will be looked at as a landmark and will change the way instrumental music is regarded from now on.

Joshua Huff is a senior at Moanalua High School.

Have a game or CD you want to review? Reach Island Life deputy editor Dave Dondoneau at ddondoneau@honoluluadvertiser.com.