24. M83

BRIXTON ACADEMY

8 NOVEMBER 2012

Fuelled by beer and burgers, me and by best mate wound our way to the O2 Academy Brixton, London’s finest faded Art Deco rave chapel, for a night with France’s premier purveyors of cosmic synth overload, M83.

Getting into Brixton Academy is always a bit like running a gauntlet. You dodge panhandlers, ravers dressed like they’re going to Fabric in 2003, and a few people already halfway into their own personal breakdown before you even make it through the doors. But once inside, it was time for the sanctuary of French electronica; assuming your idea of a sanctuary includes retina-searing lasers and synths dialled to the point of spiritual awakening.

M83, for the uninitiated, is one of those bands you don’t remember discovering so much as absorbing through cultural osmosis. Maybe you first heard them soundtracking a moody indie film. Or in a car ad where someone drove across Iceland in slow motion. Either way, they’ve been lurking in your life ever since, soundtracking your commutes, your feelings, and possibly that one summer where you briefly considered buying a drone. And tonight, they were absolutely not here to underwhelm.

Opening the set like an upgraded Hazel O’Connor, singer Morgan Kibby emerged in a grotesque face mask, arms alight with LED gauntlets, shooting actual lasers from her fingers. It was full Euro-bonkers from the jump, dry ice everywhere, visuals melting off the walls, and more strobe than a Berlin warehouse in 1994.

They kicked things off with “Intro” and then dove headfirst into the rolling synth tsunami of “Teen Angst”, which, despite sounding like emo night at a wine bar, landed like a sonic uppercut. From there, it was full throttle: throbbing bass, cinematic arpeggios, and melodies that felt like they were beaming in from another galaxy via a French satellite made entirely of feelings and glitter.

It was weird. It was wonderful. It was very, very loud. But that’s the joy of M83, isn’t it? They don’t do subtle. They do synths the size of small countries. They do melancholy at 150 BPM. And somehow, against all odds, it works.

By the end, we were dazed, slightly deaf, and absolutely transported. Were the lyrics sometimes indecipherable? Yes. Were the visuals one blinking eye short of a migraine? Also, yes. Did any of it matter? Absolutely not. Because for ninety glorious minutes, M83 turned a beer-slicked Brixton floor into a portal to something stranger, dreamier, and much, much louder.