Thursday 16/09/04 M83, Oly @ Empty Bottle, Chicago

Named after one of 110 galaxies discovered by 18th century astronomer, Charles Messier, and not after some proposed offshoot of the route linking Glasgow to Sterling, M83 is yet another French duo with a soft spot for keyboards, which means that it is only a matter of time before Sofia Coppola requests that they provide the soundtrack to her next cinematic tale of privileged malcontents.  Taking into account the band’s endless comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, whose chieftain, Kevin Shields, contributed to the soundtrack for Lost in Translation, one begins to wonder if M83 is not the most blatantly manufactured band since The Monkees, assembled in a secret Gallic laboratory, spliced with the genes of Air and Phoenix, a band whose sole purpose of existence is to pleasure the ears of the apple of Francis Ford’s eye. 

Germany’s Ulrich Schnauss was supposed to be support act, but he broke his hand.  In his place, we are forced to endure the laptop-by-numbers Bjorkisms of Oly, from Miami.  The booking agent must have taken pity on her, given Florida’s recent spate of hurricanes; why else is she here?  “You can have a good time, without spending a dime,” Oly asserts, with all the wisdom of Dr. Seuss, as she introduces her set-closer, 'No Money Fun.'  If that’s the case, Oly, you must be having one hell of a miserable time up there with that laptop.  A laptop don’t come for free, it costs about a grand, so please take your bowling bag full of gadgets and your embarrassingly self-aware stage presence and board the next red-eye to the eye of the hurricane.

M83 are greeted with muted murmurs of, “so THAT’s what they look like?!”  In oversize Carhart dungarees and AC-DC T-shirt, cocksure, gum-chewing Anthony Gonzalez looks less the expected effete Frenchman and more like some suburbanite who lost out on the Lostprophets audition.  The only thing missing is the wallet chain.  The touring bassist is an albatross, elastic, melted Brie where his bones should be, dancing when there is no beat, he is Flea if Flea were even more of a geek.  For their debut North American tour, M83 dispense of 'America' early before charging into an impressive mid-set flourish of 'Violent Crash' and '0078h'.  A late-appearing 'Run Into Flowers' receives the most applause, although, by that time, each song has tended to run its course, bleeding into the next with minimal disparity.  An easy highlight is the tinnitus-inviting encore of 'Noise', in which Nicolas Fromageau introduces a flathead screwdriver to his electric guitar, which is now lying flat on a keyboard stand.  Fromageau slides the steel between the strings and the neck to periodically flick the handle in time with the music.  It reverberates like a tuning fork, vomiting feedback, and finally forcing that fool on the steps to finish his mobile phone conversation.  Cheers, Nicolas.

M83.  On record, they sound like Vangelis.  Live, they create enough noise to annoy The Boredoms.  Next stop on the tour is California.  Advice to Miss Coppola:  invest in some earplugs.