M83 announce ninth album and release first single – listen

M83 have revealed details of their ninth studio album, and dropped the first single – you can hear it below.

Fantasy is the first new full-length from the French electronic outfit since 2019’s DSVII, and will be available via Other Suns on March 17. Effectively the solo vehicle of Anthony Gonzalez ever since the departure of founding member Nicolas Fromageau after touring wrapped for their second album, 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, M83 have also detailed a North American tour for April and May, with summer festival dates across Europe also promised and soon to be announced.

The first taste of Fantasy, meanwhile, has arrived in the shape of the typically panoramic new single ‘Oceans Niagara’, which comes accompanied by a video fro Gonzalez’s brother and long-time collaborator Yann Gonzalez, the director of Knife + Heart and You and the Night. Discussing the song and the visuals, Anthony said: “Very proud to present the first track of my new album ‘Fantasy’. It’s called Oceans Niagara and it’s the very first collaboration between my brother Yann Gonzalez and myself on a music video. I wanted to create this sense of friendship. Listening to that song, I imagine people running, driving fast, or riding spaceships together. It’s this sense of going forward, like a magic potion that you take to discover new worlds. Beyond Adventure!”

In addition, Yann commented: “‘Oceans Niagara’ is the perfect synthesis of M83’s music: a wall of sound and emotions that goes crescendo until it climaxes, with moments of pure melodic ecstasy that personally make me feel like I’m floating, loving and crying all at once, almost like being a teenager again. This is the first time I’m directing a music video for Anthony and this was a great chance for us to share our common references and emotions from our own childhood and teenage years with hints of our favourite French-Japanese animes, horror films and kid’s strange TV shows from the ‘80s and ‘90s.”

Anthony also shared his thoughts on the process and mindset behind Fantasy. “I wanted this record to be very impactful live,” he says. “The idea was to come back with something closer to the energy of [2005’s] Before The Dawn Heals Us. The combination of guitars and synths is always in my music, but it’s maybe more present on this new record than on the previous ones. I wanted to be more present lyrically and vocally even if that was daunting at first. thought if I could achieve that, this album will be more personal than those that came before.”

M83 – Fantasy:

1. ‘Water Deep’
2. ‘Oceans Niagara’
3. ‘Amnesia’
4. ‘Us and the Rest’
5. ‘Earth to Sea’
6. ‘Radar, Far, Gone’
7. ‘Deceiver’
8. ‘Fantasy’
9. ‘Laura’
10. Sunny Boy’
11. ‘Kool Nuit’
12. ‘Sunny Boy Part 2’
13. ‘Dismemberment Bureau’