M83 is the electronic music project of the French artist Anthony Gonzalez formed in France in 2001 with former member Nicolas Fromageau. M83’s style owes a lot to the shoegaze genre, in that there is much emphasis on tonality, extensive use of reverb effects and often softly-spoken lyrics at times submerged in instrumentation. M83 was named after the spiral galaxy “Messier 83”.
The double album was released on 17th October 2011, through Naïve, produced by Justin Meldal-Johnson (Beck, NIN, The Mars Volta, Goldfrapp) and including contributions from Zola Jesus, Brad Laner (from 90’s band Medicine) on guitar, and ‘Saturdays = Youth’ vocalist Morgan Kibby. The album was preceded by the track “Midnight City” released in July.
M83’s song “Unrecorded” from was used in the trailer for the American release of the Russian movie Night Watch, and the track “Teen Angst”, taken from Before The Dawn Heals Us, appeared on the trailer for the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel “A Scanner, Darkly”, which was released in 2006.