Dead Cities Ep [CD-single] [Import]

Dead Cities Ep [CD-single] [Import]

Dead Cities Ep [CD-single] [Import]

Track Listings
 
1. Clouds In The Sky
2. Dead Cities [Return Of The Native Remix]
3. Dead Cities [Force Mass Motion Remix]
4. Dead Cities [Original Mix]

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Trance. New EP from the Producer who Made his Mark with his Remix of Solar Stone's 'seven Cities' for Hooj Last Summer, and Enjoyed Recent Success under his 'velvet Girl Guise. This is a Young Producer to Watch.

Dead Cities Ep,V One,Lost Language
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • worst dream/ambient pop ive ever heard...
  • Wow!
  • Musical Snowstorm
  • 3 and a HALF stars
  • buzz
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83
Manufacturer: Mute U.S.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Ambient PopAmbient Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
ElectronicaElectronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | New Age | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Rock | Styles | Music
ElectronicElectronic | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop RockPop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Before the Dawn Heals Us
  2. M83
  3. The Campfire Headphase
  4. Music Has The Right To Children
  5. Takk...

ASIN: B0002IQB1W
Release Date: 2004-07-27

Tracks:

  1. Birds
  2. Unrecorded
  3. Run Into Flower
  4. In Church
  5. America
  6. On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain
  7. Noise
  8. Be Wild
  9. Cyborg
  10. 0078h
  11. Gone
  12. Beauties Can Die Bonus

Tracks:

  1. Birds
  2. Unrecorded
  3. In Church (Cyann & Ben Version)
  4. Gone (Live)
  5. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
  6. Run Into Flowers (Video)
  7. America (Video)

Amazon.com

Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts is the second album from French electronica duo M83 (Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau) who, thankfully, derive their name from a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Hydra and not from an interminably lackluster stretch of noxious British motorway. The name certainly nods to where their wide-eyed, spaced-out technicolor imaginations are fixed, but they also know how to sound ponderously intense--hence the cold, cello-aided sonority of "Gone," possibly the only track on the album that defies the lambent warmth of the purring analog synths and beguiling reveries that make the rest of the album as enticingly therapeutic as a thermal spa.

Humane post-rock is clearly M83's strongest attribute because both "Run into Flowers" and "On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain" are curiously pretty cameos, far removed from the automatic anemia of other workmanlike button-pushers. The high point, though, is the symphonic sweetness and motherly female choral vocals of "Beauties Can Die," which is rather like being cradled in the arms of an angel, or at the very least the arms of Sigur Ros and Lesley Garrett. If one really has to die and go to heaven, one rather hopes the journey up there will sound like this. --Kevin Maidment

Customer Reviews:

1 out of 5 stars worst dream/ambient pop ive ever heard..........2006-10-19

there's nothing pretty about any of these supposed shoegaze-esque cheeseball ballads. Sounds like jesus and marychain on a casio...go buy ulrich schnauss, at least he can write a melody instead of drone for an hour...kind of brings to mind metal-machine music, dont you think?

5 out of 5 stars Wow!.......2006-10-08

M83 totally blows me away. It's really difficult to describe their music, but I'll take a stab it here. You might say that their music is "post-apocalyptic" - i.e. the kind of music one might expect to hear after the apocalypse, if that makes any sense. Many of their songs might be described as HUGE, with layer upon layer of really intense music. This is what I like to call headphone music. It's really not the kind of music to listen to casually in your car, but more like something you'd listen to while sitting on the floor in the dark or lying in bed wide awake at 3 AM. And it's not exactly easy music to listen to either. I've really never heard anything like this, and it demands your full attention if you really expect to "get it".

3 out of 5 stars Musical Snowstorm.......2006-07-17

M83s chaotic and scratchy start soon blooms into hypnotic lyrics that suddenly end. The next track is somewhat hypnotic in its awakening and fuzzy and static in sleepy ways.

Electronic voices seem to be exploring the landscape without any direction, wandering like lost souls across a newly found bliss. If you like white noise, this may intrigue you. It feels like you are walking through a snowstorm of sound on the first CD.

The second CD seemed much more grounded and Tsuase was intriguing. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts seems to be the creative high of the two albums and while there is a consistent humming, nature sounds explore the heights.

~The Rebecca Review

3 out of 5 stars 3 and a HALF stars.......2006-07-11

Wow. It seems as if you have to think this is a legendary album or you hate it with a passion. No median? Hey, this is a good CD. I was blown away a few times, I was dancing uncontrollably a few times. I am not going to rip this album apart just because it wasn't legendary. I cant listen to the entire CD and say this is the greatest thing I have ever heard. I can say, however, that its worth buying and my ears were satisfied. I would say listen to it for yourself and decide weather you like it. I dont think you will be let down.

5 out of 5 stars buzz.......2006-05-31

i have no idea how to review an album or even critically write about a group but this band (or bloke) fills my head with sound! more than anything around today and competing with the old faves! i am listening to dead cities right now and it amazes me..
Dead Cities
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Good stuff...
  • One of my top 5 albums of all time
  • One of the top 10 cd's ever produced
  • Better Than Great
  • !
Dead Cities
The Future Sound of London
Manufacturer: Astralwerks
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

AmbientAmbient | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Techno | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
ElectronicaElectronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
Big BeatBig Beat | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
Trip-HopTrip-Hop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
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Techno-HouseTechno-House | Dance & DJ | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Lifeforms
  2. ISDN
  3. My Kingdom
  4. Accelerator
  5. Cascade

ASIN: B000003RY8
Release Date: 1996-10-29

Tracks:

  1. Herd Killing
  2. Dead Cities
  3. Her Face Forms In Summertime
  4. We Have Explosive
  5. Everyone In The World Is Doing Something Without Me
  6. My Kingdom/Max
  7. Antique Toy
  8. Quagmire
  9. In A State Of Permanent Abyss
  10. Glass
  11. Yage
  12. Vit Drowning/Through Your Gills I Breathe
  13. First Death In The Family

Amazon.com

This U.K. duo's landmark ambient techno album Lifeforms (1994) explored lush jungle vistas. Its follow-up opts for a much darker urban nightmare motif that makes it an ideal soundtrack while reading William Gibson. Progressive rockers by any other name, FSOL are highly respected innovators who rate with Orbital as the genre's leading exponent. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Good stuff..........2007-01-07

For those with a narrow musical mind, (i.e. the 'top 40' variety) this would be an unbearable CD to have to sit through, but for those with more open musical tastes, particularly in the lineage of ambient, acid techno , then this CD is for you. The soundscapes and musical textures on this masterpiece are eerie, haunting, beautiful, intricate, complex and dark. Hats off to Dougans and Cobain , the musical geniuses behind this production. I particularly enjoy the track 'Glass'. But the songs as a whole fit perfectly together and mesh well. For those looking for something similar, try Tangerine Dream's 'Ricochet'. This is the only album I can compare it to in terms of eerie, haunting, beautiful, intricate , complex and dark. And TG did it back in the 70's...live! Even the album cover , like Dead Cities, is ominous. Good stuff.....

5 out of 5 stars One of my top 5 albums of all time.......2006-01-09

Even though I bought this album almost a decade ago I have to express how wonderful of an album it is. The brilliance of this album lies in the conjured images it leaves in ones mind after listening to it. It seems the music was composed for a noire sci-fi film yet to be made. One moment its hostile the next its absolutely beautiful. Each track fades into an other weaving in and out of you're subconcious. If you're to get one electronica album its this one. A timeless masterpiece of epic proportions. FSOL's most surreal album to date.....do yourself a favor and get it while you still can.

5 out of 5 stars One of the top 10 cd's ever produced.......2005-10-10

There's some good songs on ISDN and some good ones on Lifeforms, but this entire album is creme de la creme. It is definitely one of my favorites of all time. Each track has it's own identity, you never know where the next one is going. In a good way.

5 out of 5 stars Better Than Great.......2005-09-06

What's more to say about what may be the best "rock" album ever (especially if you consider the "My Kingdom" EP to be the second disc in a two disc set)? The most emotionally wide-ranging album from one of the best bands ever. Who else has ever made music like FSOL? The Beatles and Fripp&Crimson are the only possible contenders. I've never heard anything that does a better job of juxtaposing the terrifying and the unbearably beautiful. If I could pinpoint the one disinguishing feature of all FSOL/AA releases, it would be (as a line in "The Isness" goes) "...[a longing for] inexhaustible ecstasy." It's all the more poignant on this album because of its being interwoven with themes of terror, paranoia and a sense of unrecoverable loss of something without which life isn't worth living. It sounds hokey, but just opening up the booklet while listening to "Her Face Forms in Summertime" and reading the scrawled message "things are getting f*&ked up round here" makes my eyes a little watery. My CD developed a 2 second glitch and I just ordered another one--this is so incredible that nothing less than perfection will do.

Just a few points of note: if you're wondering why you spent all that money on your two channel stereo and you haven't heard this album yet, pick it up and turn it up. I've heard recordings with more bottom end and slam, but none with more depth, nuance and musicality. I've also found that one of the true tests of a Masterpiece is whether it's possible to really enjoy listening to anything else after its over. Play Coltrane's "Ascension," Beethoven's String Quartet in A Minor Op. 132, or Bruckner's Ninth and see what I mean. I played Dead Cities last night and everything to which I tried to listen sounded hopelessly trivial afterwards. In the early 80s, a lot of my friends used to speak of The Clash as "the only band that mattered." At the time, I didn't think any band had mattered all that much since '72. To my now-much-older ears, FSOL fits that description more accurately than any band to the last 35 years, and this is probably their best work (every single one of them is a desert island disc, however). One of the very few utterly timeless classics of modern music, and a record that belongs in the collection of anyone with ears.

5 out of 5 stars !.......2005-03-08

For me, this is my favorite FSOL record. Leans heavily on trip hop flavors and does not sound like Lifeforms at all. Well performed and intellegently written.
Great spin!
Handel: Saul
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Another feast for Handelians
  • Excellent music
Handel: Saul
John Eliot Gardiner , Ruth Holton , Lynne Dawson , John Mark Ainsley , Donna Brown , Derek Lee Ragin , English Baroque Soloists , Philip Salmon , and Neil Mackie
Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

All Works by HandelAll Works by Handel | Handel, George Frideric | ( H ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Baroque (c.1600-1750) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
OratoriosOratorios | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
OratoriosOratorios | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000412J
Release Date: 1991-09-12

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Another feast for Handelians.......2003-12-25

Here's another astonishing piece for all Handelians. Many of Handel's great pieces have sadly been neglected - just like many of Richard Strauss' operas which have only recently received attention from people like Botstein, Korsten and Sinopoli (deceased). Thankfully, Gardiner and his team took the trouble to record this astonishing masterpiece. I simply love this piece - Saul!! The Monteverdi choir is the best in the world - listen to their stunning virtuosity here. Thank you, Gardiner!!

5 out of 5 stars Excellent music.......2003-09-14

Saul is one of those lesser known works by Handel. I certainly prefer Solomon, the Messiah or Israel in Egypt. Nevertheless, there is plenty of glorious music in Saul. The Monteverdi sings with their customary virtuosity. Casting of solo parts is superb. A bit on the pricey side but this is an investment that will yield rich dividends over a long period of time. Instead of listening to the Messiah all the time, or Solomon or Jephtha, why not be more daring and explore this lesser known work by Handel?
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • nothing special
  • Sonic Brilliance!!
  • Synthesizer "Loveless"
  • A do-it-yourself lobotomy kit.
  • A Truly Amazing Album
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83
Manufacturer: EMI Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
ElectronicaElectronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | New Age | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Rock | Styles | Music
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Pop RockPop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Ambient PopAmbient Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
RockRock | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0000AISL4
Release Date: 2003-09-29

Tracks:

  1. Birds
  2. Unrecorded
  3. Run Into Flowers
  4. In Church
  5. America
  6. On A White Lake, Near A Green Mountain
  7. Noise
  8. Be Wild
  9. Cyborg
  10. 0078h
  11. Gone
  12. Beauties Can Die

Album Description

Full Title - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. From electronica to ambient, M83's distinct sound is both modern & melodic. The group makes machines seem human by endowing them with a mysterious & innocent character, one that mirrors the personality of the band. The followup to their self-titled debut album, released in 2001. This new release features 12 tracks. Labels/Mute. 2003.

Album Details

From Electronica to Pop to Ambient, M83's Distinct Sound Emerged after Just One Album: Both Modern and Melancholic. The Group Make Machines Seem Human by Endowing them with a Mysterious and Innocent Character, One that Mirrors the Personality of the Two Band Members, Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau. "Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts" Possesses a More Assertive Sound, Going Beyond the Band's First Album. Anthony and Nicolas have Raised the Bar - Without Foregoing their Exceptional Sense of Melody Or Losing their Ability to Communicate Sound in a Fresh New Way - Generating Complexity by Alternating Slow Tracks and Faster Ones.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars nothing special.......2005-01-08

Listening to this CD reminds me of Darla's bliss out releases from the 1990's. In light of Windy and Carl, Transient Waves, Orange Cake Mix, (et al.), and even Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, I don't see the need to rave about this release.

It's okay background music if you've got a term paper to write.

5 out of 5 stars Sonic Brilliance!!.......2004-10-10

Let me just say the sound samples available on amazon doesn't do this cd any justice you really have to hear how each track progresses to really appreciate the whole appeal of the music. If I was to describe their style simply think GYBE! that uses synths instead of guitars!! Lots of rantings and powerful cadences that makes it sound as if the world was ending right before your very ears!!

For me there are no standout tracks cause I love each and everyone of them. I would even categorize it as post punk in structure along with the likes of GYBE!, Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky but with a unique character.

Give it a try. If you like it, then this will probably become one of your all time favs.

5 out of 5 stars Synthesizer "Loveless".......2004-06-23

Doing for synths what MBV did for guitars, French duo M83 have created an intensely beautiful wall of sound that is sometimes so dense as to be overwhelming. Named after a gorgeous spiral galaxy in the Andromeda Strain (and not after a noxious British freeway), the music is appropriate to their moniker: it is a swirling mass of thick sound alive with mystery and beauty. The songs melt together into a glacier destroying everything in sight, but they maintain individual entities, and for every massive moment like "In Church" or "Cyborg" there are moments of fleeting fragilty like "Beauties Can Die", a fourteen minute treasure that spends most of its time in reverent silence.
Because of its import status, this wasn't in consideration for many top ten lists from 2003, which is a shame: in hindsight, it was a rather weak year for music, and this album is head and shoulders above other releases from those twelve months - even if it was only in Europe. Get it today! It is well worth the money, especially if you find it for cheaper.

1 out of 5 stars A do-it-yourself lobotomy kit........2004-02-20

Layers of sustained synth notes moving slowly through progressions that are alternately cliched and uninspired. Endless minor progressions meant to evoke feeling.

Insipid crud for the microcephalic set.

5 out of 5 stars A Truly Amazing Album.......2004-02-13

This stuff is great, it doesn't sound quite like anything else. It has aspects of other music. The analogue synths of Kid A, the gradeur of Mogwai, the electronic feel of Autechre, yet it sounds nothing like any of the aforementioned groups. This is without a doubt one of my top five albums of the past year.
Dead Cities
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Good stuff...
  • One of my top 5 albums of all time
  • One of the top 10 cd's ever produced
  • Better Than Great
  • !
Dead Cities
The Future Sound of London
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

AmbientAmbient | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Techno | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
ElectronicaElectronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
Big BeatBig Beat | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
Trip-HopTrip-Hop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
Dance & DJDance & DJ | Imports | Stores | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Lifeforms
  2. ISDN
  3. My Kingdom
  4. Accelerator
  5. Cascade

ASIN: B000024N9E
Release Date: 2005-05-17

Tracks:

  1. Herd Killing
  2. Dead Cities
  3. Her Face Forms In Summertime
  4. We Have Explosive
  5. Everyone In The World Is Doing Something Without Me
  6. My Kingdom
  7. Max
  8. Antique Toy
  9. Quagmire / In A State Of Permanent Abyss
  10. Glass
  11. Yage
  12. Vit Drowning / Through Your Gills I Breathe
  13. First Death In The Family

Amazon.com

This U.K. duo's landmark ambient techno album Lifeforms (1994) explored lush jungle vistas. Its follow-up opts for a much darker urban nightmare motif that makes it an ideal soundtrack while reading William Gibson. Progressive rockers by any other name, FSOL are highly respected innovators who rate with Orbital as the genre's leading exponent. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Good stuff..........2007-01-07

For those with a narrow musical mind, (i.e. the 'top 40' variety) this would be an unbearable CD to have to sit through, but for those with more open musical tastes, particularly in the lineage of ambient, acid techno , then this CD is for you. The soundscapes and musical textures on this masterpiece are eerie, haunting, beautiful, intricate, complex and dark. Hats off to Dougans and Cobain , the musical geniuses behind this production. I particularly enjoy the track 'Glass'. But the songs as a whole fit perfectly together and mesh well. For those looking for something similar, try Tangerine Dream's 'Ricochet'. This is the only album I can compare it to in terms of eerie, haunting, beautiful, intricate , complex and dark. And TG did it back in the 70's...live! Even the album cover , like Dead Cities, is ominous. Good stuff.....

5 out of 5 stars One of my top 5 albums of all time.......2006-01-09

Even though I bought this album almost a decade ago I have to express how wonderful of an album it is. The brilliance of this album lies in the conjured images it leaves in ones mind after listening to it. It seems the music was composed for a noire sci-fi film yet to be made. One moment its hostile the next its absolutely beautiful. Each track fades into an other weaving in and out of you're subconcious. If you're to get one electronica album its this one. A timeless masterpiece of epic proportions. FSOL's most surreal album to date.....do yourself a favor and get it while you still can.

5 out of 5 stars One of the top 10 cd's ever produced.......2005-10-10

There's some good songs on ISDN and some good ones on Lifeforms, but this entire album is creme de la creme. It is definitely one of my favorites of all time. Each track has it's own identity, you never know where the next one is going. In a good way.

5 out of 5 stars Better Than Great.......2005-09-06

What's more to say about what may be the best "rock" album ever (especially if you consider the "My Kingdom" EP to be the second disc in a two disc set)? The most emotionally wide-ranging album from one of the best bands ever. Who else has ever made music like FSOL? The Beatles and Fripp&Crimson are the only possible contenders. I've never heard anything that does a better job of juxtaposing the terrifying and the unbearably beautiful. If I could pinpoint the one disinguishing feature of all FSOL/AA releases, it would be (as a line in "The Isness" goes) "...[a longing for] inexhaustible ecstasy." It's all the more poignant on this album because of its being interwoven with themes of terror, paranoia and a sense of unrecoverable loss of something without which life isn't worth living. It sounds hokey, but just opening up the booklet while listening to "Her Face Forms in Summertime" and reading the scrawled message "things are getting f*&ked up round here" makes my eyes a little watery. My CD developed a 2 second glitch and I just ordered another one--this is so incredible that nothing less than perfection will do.

Just a few points of note: if you're wondering why you spent all that money on your two channel stereo and you haven't heard this album yet, pick it up and turn it up. I've heard recordings with more bottom end and slam, but none with more depth, nuance and musicality. I've also found that one of the true tests of a Masterpiece is whether it's possible to really enjoy listening to anything else after its over. Play Coltrane's "Ascension," Beethoven's String Quartet in A Minor Op. 132, or Bruckner's Ninth and see what I mean. I played Dead Cities last night and everything to which I tried to listen sounded hopelessly trivial afterwards. In the early 80s, a lot of my friends used to speak of The Clash as "the only band that mattered." At the time, I didn't think any band had mattered all that much since '72. To my now-much-older ears, FSOL fits that description more accurately than any band to the last 35 years, and this is probably their best work (every single one of them is a desert island disc, however). One of the very few utterly timeless classics of modern music, and a record that belongs in the collection of anyone with ears.

5 out of 5 stars !.......2005-03-08

For me, this is my favorite FSOL record. Leans heavily on trip hop flavors and does not sound like Lifeforms at all. Well performed and intellegently written.
Great spin!
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • calm down
  • Electronic waves of wall-of-noise beauty
  • Pitchforkmedia Review; 9.2 out of 10.0 . Amazing...
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83
Manufacturer: Virgin
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | New Age | Styles | Music
ElectronicaElectronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
Ambient PopAmbient Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
ElectronicElectronic | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00008NF70
Release Date: 2003-04-15

Tracks:

  1. Birds
  2. Unrecorded
  3. Run Into Flowers
  4. In Church
  5. America
  6. On A White Lake, Near A Green Mountain
  7. Noise
  8. Be Wild
  9. Cyborg
  10. 0078h
  11. Gone
  12. Beauties Can Die

Tracks:

  1. Tsubasa
  2. God Of Thunder
  3. In Church (Cyan & Ben Version)
  4. Gone (Live)
  5. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

Customer Reviews:

1 out of 5 stars calm down.......2003-06-19

I think the previous reviewer meant "inhabit" instead of "inhibit". You inhabit this album, not inhibit it... but then are you going to listen to someone who just spews pitchfork left and right anyway? Choose for yourself, people.

5 out of 5 stars Electronic waves of wall-of-noise beauty.......2003-06-07

There are few albums over the course of a year that I will listen to that completely envelop me on first listen. "Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts" is that kind of album. It's dark, optimistic, intense, warm and soothing at the same time. It does use elements of Shoegazing, but not to the point where it seems derivative. I'd recommend this for fans of: Sigur Ros, gy!be, Postal Service, Air, Boards of Canada, Mum and yes, the sounds of Shoegazers.

5 out of 5 stars Pitchforkmedia Review; 9.2 out of 10.0 . Amazing..........2003-05-20

Sometimes, I think it can't be a matter of simple coincidence that sound, when rendered visually, often appears as ever-changing green fluctuations stretched over an infinite black void. The power of music to seemingly construct, alter and distort space can be staggering and, when expertly manipulated, absolutely awe-inspiring.

Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, the second album from electronic duo M83, is such an album-- and one that, with any luck, will win them widespread recognition outside their native France. Simply put, this album sounds absolutely huge, its relentless attention to detail eclipsed only by the stunning emotional power it conveys. For fifty-seven glorious minutes, an impossibly intricate tapestry of buzzing techno synthesizers, distorted electric guitars, cheesy drum machines, and subdued vocals generate a sense of bodily movement through a landscape of beauty, disappointment, glory, and decrepitude. Dead Cities is an album that not only envelops you, but affords you room to explore its vast expanses of beautifully constructed sound.

The most immediately noticeable thing about Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts is how different M83's palette of sounds is from the ones usually used to create music possessing this much beauty and depth. Countless musicians have humanized electronic sounds by generating tones that are warm or organic, but M83 have chosen a more challenging route, conveying warmth and beauty through that familiar filtered buzz of hackneyed synthesizers usually found in techno and dance tracks. Simply put, the sounds that have constituted some of the most vapid, hedonistic, and forgettable music of our time have come back to make us cry.

M83 open their album with one of their most striking misappropriations of trite instrumentation. In "Birds", a tinny sample of chirping birds is combined with swells of synth strings and a computerized voice repeating, "Sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are glowing, clouds are looming and I am flying." In another context, this combination might have been disastrous, but M83 manage to turn it into something surprisingly powerful. The computerized voice is run through an odd, wavering melodic filter that affords it just the right degree of harmonic dissonance with the synth strings, and takes on a decidedly unsettling feel, turning it into a mantra-like invocation of the unsteady world you're about to enter.

Once inside, you're exposed to a landscape of such depth and complexity that it often seems infinite. Rather than just ending, sounds and songs disappear off into the horizon, always bringing the promise of something familiar but unforeseen to follow. "Unrecorded", the first full-fledged song on Dead Cities, makes clear why M83 have drawn so many My Bloody Valentine comparisons. Building upon a foundation of fuzzed-out guitar, rich bass, synth strings, and a drum machine that sounds surprisingly like the acoustic drums of Loveless, M83 layer burbling techno synthesizers into complex rhythmic intersections, as the song's vast backdrop slowly fades away. Just like My Bloody Valentine and their ilk turned fuzzy, distorted electric guitars into something divine and volatile, M83 recast harsh sawtooth waves as voices of reflection and regret. In "Run into Flowers", almost-real strings and whispered vocals are juxtaposed with overdriven drum machine clicks, as an insistent 4/4 beat carries you through images of lush fields, abandoned factories and polluted rivers.

This kind of juxtaposition factors heavily into "In Church", as a clear pipe organ and an angelic, reverb-laden chorus are assaulted by blasts of white noise. Finally, a wrenching, synthesized melody enters, providing a profoundly moving counterpoint to the sterile beauty that preceded it. By the time you get to "0078h", it's impossible to tell whether the heavily altered vocals are of human or computerized origin, and it's also completely ceased to matter. Oftentimes, the most organic sounds on Dead Cities are the most formless, and the most glaringly synthetic sounds the most emotional.

Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts ends fittingly with the 14-minute epic "Beauties Can Die", which recalls at first the melodic, pastoral electronica of Mum's Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is Okay. This peaceful opening is soon completely overtaken by a sound that gradually transforms from a low, earthquake-like rumble into a blast of synthesized static. Synthesizers and harmony vocals are layered and layered until the sound is so explosively, beautifully gigantic that you won't mind it's damaging your hearing. The earthquake rumble returns, each time ushering in even more layers of ungodly gorgeous sound, and each time evoking a stomach-turning combination of fear and excitement. At the crash of a synthesized cymbal, the song descends into submerged ambience, and ultimately into a long silence, before resurfacing with distorted radar blips and terrifying shrieks of howling noise.

As "Beauties Can Die" fades, you're left with the feeling that you've just returned from a journey-- that the images passing through your mind for the last hour couldn't possibly have been the result of mere imagination. An album like this extends far beyond your speakers, guiding you through an impossibly rich, detailed world of sound while also giving you room to explore it yourself; you don't listen to Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, you inhabit it.

-Matt LeMay, May 12th, 2003
Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
    M83
    Manufacturer: EMI
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD

    GeneralGeneral | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
    ElectronicaElectronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
    GeneralGeneral | New Age | Styles | Music
    Ambient PopAmbient Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
    ElectronicElectronic | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music
    RockRock | Imports | Stores | Music
    ASIN: B0001CVD4Y
    Release Date: 2004-02-09

    Tracks:

    1. Birds
    2. Unrecorded
    3. Run Into Flowers
    4. In Church
    5. America
    6. On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain
    7. Noise
    8. Be Wild
    9. Cyborg
    10. 0078h
    11. Gone
    12. Beauties Can Die

    Tracks:

    1. Run Into Flowers [Abstrackt Keal Agram Remix][*]
    2. Run Into Flowers [Midnight Fuck Remix][*]
    3. In Church [Cyann & Ben Version][*]
    4. Run Into Flowers [Ig Farben Vorschlag][*]
    Dead Cities
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Dead Cities
      Exploited
      Manufacturer: Harry May (UK)
      ProductGroup: Music
      Binding: Audio CD

      HardcoreHardcore | Hardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
      PunkPunk | Hardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
      ASIN: B00000JQXU
      Release Date: 2001-06-08
      Dead Cities
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • AT LAST !!!!!!!
      • ¡ESPECTACULAR!
      Dead Cities
      The Exploited
      Manufacturer: Phantom Sound & Visi
      ProductGroup: Music
      Binding: Audio CD

      HardcoreHardcore | Hardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
      PunkPunk | Hardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
      BritainBritain | British Isles | Europe | International | Styles | Music
      GeneralGeneral | Rock | Styles | Music
      Hardcore & PunkHardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Box Sets | Stores | Music
      ASIN: B00004VX8D
      Release Date: 2000-11-21

      Tracks:

      1. Exploited Barmy Army
      2. I Believe in Anarchy
      3. Punks Not Dead
      4. Dogs of War
      5. YOP
      6. Attack
      7. Daily News
      8. So Tragic
      9. Alternative
      10. Hitler's in the Charts Again
      11. Dead Cities
      12. Class War
      13. UK '82
      14. Disorder
      15. War
      16. Computers Don't Blunder
      17. Troops of Tomorrow
      18. Sex and Violence

      Album Description

      18 tracks of aggressive punk from one of the biggest punk bands ever. Collected here are the very best of the bands recordings for the legendary Secret Records label. Includes the hits, 'Dogs Of War' and 'Dead Cities'. Tin can packaging.

      Album Details

      Specially Packaged Compilation featuring the Best Tracks from the Exploited. Comes in a Metal Tin with a Picture Disc and Five Picture Postcards

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars AT LAST !!!!!!!.......2003-12-19

      A gorgeously remastered collection of the best of The Exploited's early singles and songs taken from their first 2 albums.This is a seriours starting point for anyone who wants to be introduced to the band.I hate to sound repetitive,but it sounds incredible!!.Get the Harry May tin can
      edition if you can,it's worth the extra buks and only appropiate to shield you against the radiation of this anthemic 18 songs.

      5 out of 5 stars ¡ESPECTACULAR!.......2000-08-27

      el mejor compilado de EXPLOITED ke ai, tienen ke comprarlo 18 temas de los mejores de la banda, aunke faltaron algunos no deja de ser un disco increible, COMPRENLO VIVA EXPLOITED
      Roy Harris : Symphony for Band. Chorale for String Orchestra. Prelude and Fugue for String Orchestra / Robert Russell Bennett. Violin Concerto (Bay Cities)
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Roy Harris : Symphony for Band. Chorale for String Orchestra. Prelude and Fugue for String Orchestra / Robert Russell Bennett. Violin Concerto (Bay Cities)

        Manufacturer: Dead Line
        ProductGroup: Music
        Binding: Audio CD
        ASIN: B00008ER4O
        Release Date: 1993-09-11

        Music:

        1. Dead Man's Curse [CD-single]
        2. Disgraceful + 7 [Import]
        3. DJ Cut [CD-single] [Import]
        4. DJ Mix '97, Vol. 2
        5. Do I Look Like a Slut [CD-single] [Enhanced]
        6. Dos Or Die: DJ Meeting 2000 [Import]
        7. Ep Pt. 2 [Import]
        8. Everyday Girl [CD-single]
        9. First Class Ticket to Telos
        10. Freestyle: A New Dimension in Tyme, Vol. 1

        Music

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