M83

Though the fourth M83 full-length won’t be ready until January 2008, principal member Anthony Gonzalez has prepared a light appetizer that will tide over the bellies of his fans. The Frenchman has launched an "ongoing ambient series” called Digital Shades through his label Mute that focuses purely on the ambient side of M83’s engaging dream pop. If "Car Chase Terror!” from Before the Dawn Heals Us scared you shitless with its high panicked, slasher drama and you’re jonesin’ for more spellbinding tracks like "Gone” from Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, then this is the right stuff for you. Digital Shades instantly provides a euphoric rush, as the multi-layered synths and castrated falsettos build dramatic tension that ebbs and flows between distressing and hopeful. It’s the M83 album for sleepyheads and daydreamers, and it works like a charm as your nightly lullaby. Realising how limited an ambient album is in reaching an audience, Gonzalez has made the album specifically for digital retail, so your local record shop won’t carry this. As for the next instalment, Gonzalez said in a live online listening party that the second volume will appear "maybe in 2012.” Let’s hope that was a typo because bedtime needs more of this.

M83 "Colouring the Void" (from Digital Shades Vol. 1)