M83
3.5/5 stars
Anthony Gonzalez of M83 has mastered the electronic soundscape, which we’ve encountered in his most popular album, “Hurry Up We’re Dreaming,” and in his first original soundtrack for the film, “Oblivion.” Yet his latest work, a soundtrack for his brother’s debut film, “You and the Night” (in French: “Les rencontres d'après minuit”), lacks direction and ultimately falls short of its high expectations.
The album is dark—fitting, for the film’s title. The opening track, ‘L’inconnu (Unknown),’ starts us off with whirlwind ambient noise before Gonzalez jerks us through a discordant soundscape. A haunting female voice blends into a high-pitched chime, and after throwing in a couple of muffled, but alarming, slamming sounds, the two-minute song ends abruptly. Gonzalez, who has a penchant for vibrant bursts throughout even the eeriest of his works, has stripped “You and the Night” of any gimmicks or distractions. The result is chilling.
As Gonzalez moves onto the rest of the album, he introduces us to the contrasting but still integral aspects of the film and its soundtrack. His next tracks are harmonious. ‘Nous (Us)’ is romantic, capturing frenzied passion; it moves quickly, but gently. He maintains the female vocalization throughout the primary electronic layers: one holds a solid chord; the other quickly flitters through melodies. He’s offering a hasty glimpse into the unthinking thrills of youthful passion. ‘Vision’ is much slower. It takes us beyond the romantic and into the intimate. It’s the kind of track that simmers as, note by note, Gonzalez expands the sound. The vocals are fully blended into the synth until, at the very end, they become clear again. They sound pure, yet each note will subtly fall into a timbre that clashes, unsettling the listener.
The album falls short not because of Gonzalez’s composition ability, but because it fails to stand on its own. M83’s specialty resides in its deliberate sense of movement, and of continuously going even in the barest of their songs and the most eclectic of their albums. “You and the Night” briefly heads into multiple directions before it stops and changes pace. And rather than creating something exciting in its unpredictability, Gonzalez has left us with 15 individual tracks; some blend into one another, and the majority of the pieces sound unfinished. Granted that this is a film score and that each track might not be meant to stand alone, the music simply sounds disjoint. Despite its most delicate (‘First Light,’ ‘A La Lumière Des Diamants I & II’) and its most reverberating moments (‘Ali & Matthias,’ ‘Holograms’), we still wonder where all this is bringing us.
Overall, however, “You and the Night” encapsulates the essential, though perhaps initially overlooked, moments of “Les rencontres d'après minuit.” With its mix of the minimal and the resounding, it has certainly achieved exactly what the Gonzalez brothers—the musician, along with the director—had hoped.
The score is sometimes uncertain, sometimes frenzied, sometimes spine-chilling and sometimes glorious. The final and longest track of the album, ‘Un Nouveau Soleil (A New Sun),’ captures all of these and the brilliance that we hoped for. The track sounds like it could have been a single on any M83 record, and it stands separately, straying from the rest of the sometimes pure, sometimes unnerving film score. It moves away from the 1970s, French soundtrack-inspired melodies and into the electronic. It crescendos and decrescendos, and we’re back to hearing that synth, unyielding as it plays the same three notes in a continuous chord progression. The strings build before bursting into a bellowing, magnificent fullness. It’s the first time a track has a distinguishable climax, outfitted with more layers, sharp snare percussions, and bolder and more urgent vocals. We are finally submerged into the fantastical, utterly unknown world of this film. And at the end, it’s just as Anthony Gonzalez promised: “This score is really for lovers and ghosts."
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