M83’s music tends to inspire some creative description: “Imax electro-pop”, “post-acid-house shoegazing” and “a signature post-rock sound for the masses” are phrases that have all been used. Here Anthony Gonzalez talks about his favourite five electronic albums, the power of krautrock and the importance of having a very cool older brother.
Brian Eno: Ambient 1 – Music for Airports
When I feel a bit blue and tired, I put this on and just relax. It puts me to bed. Here Come the Warm Jets is more pop, but this is more subtle and minimalist, which is what I prefer from Eno. The first time I heard it, I was in Paris at my ex-manager’s apartment. I was maybe 20 or 21 – we used to go to his apartment and just listen to music because he had an amazing record collection. I fell in love with the album and the way Eno plays with different frequencies and atmospheres. It’s a very simple album, but very grand. I always felt lucky, because my brother and my manager taught me music and told me what to listen to; when you’re young, you don’t know. The older I get, the more I have a tendency to go back to the influences and bands I was listening to as a kid. It’s like going back to the roots and reconnecting with myself. There’s memory and meaning attached to these records.
Ashra: New Age of Earth
My brother made me a cassette and put Radiohead on one side and New Age of Earth [by Manuel Göttsching, the former leader of seminal krautrock band Ash Ra Tempel, recording as Ashra] on the other. When the Ashra album started, I thought it was the new Radiohead album, Kid A. It made sense in a way, and I told myself: “Wow, Radiohead really went crazy on this new album.” In the end, I felt Kid A was something like Ashra, very organic and pure in the synth sound and the production. It made sense for me to put both albums on the same cassette – the perfect cassette. They’re 25 years apart, but they have something in common. In the mid-70s, it must have been nearly impossible to have made this album because everything is sequenced and precise. It has an oceanic quality to it: it’s always expanding and doing crazy things with the audio waves.
Tangerine Dream: Phaedra
My brother’s bedroom was separate from the house, so he had more privacy. Every Friday night, he would go to sleep at his friend’s house and would leave me his room. I’d invite a couple of my friends over and we’d watch crazy films and listen to crazy music. That was an amazing time, because we discovered so many bands and so many films. My brother would leave out a couple of VHS tapes for us to watch and a couple of CDs for us to listen to. We watched a lot of B-movies and kitsch horror films, but also a lot of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s movies such as The Holy Mountain and El Topo, plus sci-fi such as Dune. Music-wise, there was Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Sonic Youth, and soundtracks such as Ennio Morricone and Goblin. We discovered so much through these Friday-night parties. I remember falling asleep listening to Phaedra, a little stoned and being completely blown away by the adventure of it. It was taking me to places I had never been before. This album is the reason I’m obsessed with synthesisers.
Popol Vuh: Aguirre, the Wrath of God soundtrack
Popol Vuh’s music is not the kind of music you expect to be in a movie like this, about the conquistadors in South America, but it takes the film to another dimension: it’s just pads and weird melodies, and it’s super spacey. It’s haunting, just as haunting as Klaus Kinski, who is amazing in this film. It’s uncomfortable to watch because the whole thing feels so real, but that’s the beauty of Werner Herzog’s film. Ambient is what I listen to the most. What I listen to is quiet and subtle and not grand at all. It’s just more minimal. Music is my job and I listen to music a lot every day and sometimes you just want to relax, so you just put on some ambient and classical.
Henryk Górecki: Symphony No 3 (AKA Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)
OK, so this isn’t actually an electronic album, but there are a lot of common points between Górecki’s music and mine. It’s epic. You listen to it and it feels like your speakers are going to explode. To me, it sounds like big synthesisers because the composer makes the orchestra play so loud. I was doing promo for Before the Dawn Heals Us [M83’s 2005 album] and a guy on my Parisian label told me about this symphony. I had no idea who Górecki was. He goes from something very subtle that you can barely hear to a big build-up that makes everything explode. That’s why I put him in this electronic selection; Górecki has the power of the bass, the power of the sub you have in electronic music, except it’s all orchestral. It’s really what my recipe is: I like to build up from something quiet to something huge and almost unbearable. It’s really what I’m known for – being very cinematic.
As told to Lanre Bakare
M83 plays the Glastonbury festival on 25 June, Manchester O2 Ritz on 26 June, Glasgow O2 ABC on 26 June and Latitude on 17 July. The album Junk is out now on Naive.
