M83

M83 Biography

M83 is an electronic music group consisting of Nicolas Fromageau and Anthony Gonzalez, and was formed in Antibes, France in 2001. The musical style owes something to the shoegazing genre in its extensive use of reverb effects and lyrics spoken softly over loud instrumentals, though M83's songs employ considerably less guitar than most shoegazing bands such as My Bloody Valentine. All three of their albums were well received, in particular Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, their second album, which allowed them to break through to a larger audience. For the third album released by M83, Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to part from Fromageau (after an emotionally distressing tour for Dead Cities) and record mainly on his own, with the help of a few other musicians. M83's song "Unrecorded" from Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts was used in the trailer for the international release of the Russian movie Night Watch, and the track "Teen Angst", taken from Before the Dawn Heals Us, appears on the trailer for the film adaptation of A Scanner Darkly. Some of M83's tracks were featured in several Top Gear episodes, including "Unrecorded" (series 3, episode 2; and series 4, episode 5), "Cyborg" (series 3, episode 5) and most notably, "Moonchild" (series 7, episode 3; and series 7, episode 7). M83's "Don't Save us From the Flames", which is about a car crash, was also featured in a Pontiac commercial. Cyann & Ben's cover of "In Church" was featured in the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction.