Conceptual double album? Musicians hardly get past an EP to make a single album these days, let alone a double (conceptual or otherwise) one. But, M83’s fall-released “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” spreads Anthony Gonzalez’s savvy dance pop over two discs, creating an epic landmark in the French artist’s decade-long career.
“I’m lost, I don’t know what to listen to these days. The internet is going too fast for me,” Gonzalez (aka M83) tells Metro. “People might get excited about a record, but 20 minutes later they are excited about another. This is me saying I am not into the way we listen to music these days,” he says, sounding like a child of the 1960s rather than the 1980s. “It’s very impersonal”
M83 isn’t a Luddite, bemoaning technology though. “I’m not saying that it’s bad,” Gonzalez says of the almighty internet. “I’m saying it’s different and I’m finding it hard to get acquainted. It’s fantastic that you can release your own music with just a laptop nowadays. It’s very futuristic and exciting. But also very scary.”
Another scary thing for Gonzalez was his decision, almost two years ago, to move from his native South of France to Los Angeles, opening a new chapter in his life: “I was craving a new adventure. In the south of France, I was in bubble with my family and close friends. It was almost too easy, too beautiful. I needed to do something for myself.”
But the main motivation for creating such an epic record, though, is that the 30-year-old felt the passage of time and childhood lost.
“When I moved to L.A., the first three or four months were very difficult for me. I was homesick. I just started remembering being a kid. It was kind of melancholy nostalgia, but not sad. The nostalgia of being a kid and now you’re a grown up and everything is over, but knowing that you can connect to your past through memories is the beauty of this album.”
M83
With Active Child
Sunday, 8 p.m.
House of Blues
15 Lansdowne St., Boston.
SOLD OUT
Tuesday, 6 p.m.
Webster Hall
125 E 11th St, New York
$22, 21+, 212-353-1600
Wednesday, 9 p.m.
Music Hall Of Williamsburg
66 North Sixth St., Brooklyn
$22, 718-486-5400
