I Wrote You a Letter

<b>M83</b>‘s 10th album wastes no time reorienting you to Anthony Gonzalez’s neon-glow dreamworld, as the opening <b>“Blister Sunrise”</b> instantly plunges you into a synthgaze sound bath as swiftly as “Only Shallow” tosses you straight into the deep end on my bloody valentine’s <i>Loveless</i>. While Gonzalez has long excelled at translating his hallucinatory visions into heart-racing indie-pop anthems, the largely instrumental <i>I Wrote You a Letter</i> feels closer in spirit to his embryonic early-2000s work, where he wasn’t so much singing his heart out as letting his emotions well up into dam-bursting waves of electronic psychedelia. Here, Gonzalez lets the digi-drone drama build to operatic levels (and not just on the track that’s actually called <b>“Opera”</b>). Where <b>“Losing Ground”</b> begins as a serene soundtrack to a new day rising, by the end, its intensifying oscillations feel better suited to accompany a rocket launch. But there are also echoes of Gonzalez’s more esoteric film-score compositions, where his neoclassical and improv affinities come to the fore: If you’re the sort of M83 fan who can’t resist playing air-sax to his signature 2011 synth-pop bop “Midnight City”, you’ll have your work cut out for you when trying to keep up with the mercurial free-jazz meditation <b>“Siren / Behold…Beasts”</b>. <b>Our Favourite Moment</b>: When the gentle psych-folk finger-plucking of <b>“Feeding Time”</b> suddenly explodes into a synth-shocked, speed-prog stomper that sounds like Gonzalez’s tech-topian version of hardcore.