M83 Ready New Album for January Release

M83's 2003 release of Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts never seemed hurt by its initial obscurity. If anything, it probably helped that the group's mind-enveloping opus first reached a handful of American listeners as a mysterious dispatch from overseas, dripping with unearthly noises and paid for with unearthly sums of cash. After being named Pitchfork's #8 album of 2003, it was finally issued domestically by Mute Records this year with a bonus disc, and the rest is history-- albeit history that only happened three months ago.

Anyway, during the time it took for the last record to cross over to these shores, M83 have taken the next step. That is, they've finished work on another full-length. That album, titled Before the Dawn Heals Us, is scheduled to be released January 25th, 2005, via Mute. And it will have tracks on it! No, wait, we can be even more specific:

01 Moonchild
02 Don't save us from the flames
03 In the cold I'm standing
04 Farewell / Goodbye
05 Fields, shorelines and hunters
06 *
07 I guess I'm floating
08 Teen angst
09 Can't stop
10 Safe
11 Let men burn stars
12 Car chase terror!
13 Slight night shiver
14 A guitar and a heart
15 Lower your eyelids to die with the sun

Formerly a duo of Anthony Gonzales and Nicolas Fromageau, M83 are now essentially Gonzalez in the studio and a foursome on the road; beginning with the band's first U.S. tour this past September, the live version of M83 now consists of Gonzalez (guitar, keys), Philippe Thipaine (autre guitar), Stephan Bouvier (bass), and Ludovic Morillon (drums). We have it on good authority that the other three guys are stalwarts of the French music scene, but our nickel-dictionary French turned out to be no use in deciphering webpages about them, and the Pitchfork staff translator quit after the fifth time we asked whether "Fromageau" meant "cheese-water." (Apparently, it doesn't.)

"Don't Save Us from the Flames" will be the first single released from the album, though whether this means that a wad of B-sides on a double import CD single or something similar is currently unclear. A spokesperson at Mute also declined to "spill the beans" about another tour, leading us to grovel and plead, which still didn't work. Dignity... bah.