Pitchfork

As a subject for reinterpretation, the music of M83 presents a unique set of challenges. While many of M83's electronic contemporaries manipulate discrete, compartmentalized units of sound, M83 craft music that could most easily be categorized as monolithic-- sizzling walls of noise sculpted into moving, memorable songs. Where so many electronic musicians are content to simply create atmosphere or bring conceptual experiments to life, the songs are as integral to M83's music as the sounds that inhabit them-- in fact, the two often seem inexorably linked. Because of this symbiosis, reworking an M83 song, whether by cover or remix, would seem a difficult undertaking.

In the wake of their epic Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, M83 have released these two singles, each of which is backed by a handful of reinterpreted tracks from the album. The single release for "Run into Flowers", the standout track from that album, is accompanied here by three distinctive and diverse remixes, while the "0078h" single takes a less traditional route, offering a live version of the album track "Gone", as well as a cover of "In Church" by M83 labelmates Cyann & Ben. None of these come close to surpassing the originals, of course, but each constitutes an artful, considerate and revealing take on the source material.

By far the most accessible track on Dead Cities, "Run into Flowers" stands as the obvious choice for first single. A perfect representation of M83's strengths, the song is remarkable for both its intensity and its tenderness. Its hushed vocals, juxtaposed with glorious swells of digital strings, are the beating heart of Dead Cities, providing a locus of humanity amidst the album's surprisingly wrenching synthesized arrangements. By contrast, the song's remixes seem rather ordinary; in two out of three cases, the ostensibly shoegazey tendencies of the original are eschewed in favor of a more familiar beats-and-cuts aesthetic.

French glitch-hop crew Abstrackt Keal Agram chop the vast and impenetrable "Run into Flowers" into more manageable pieces before fitting it with a sturdy backbeat and some additional vocal flourishes. The shift to a more straightforward rhythm robs the original of much of its unrelenting vibrancy, but the remixers wisely build to a surging crescendo, recasting the song's vocals as a disembodied mantra. Jackson's "Midnight Fuck Remix" is the most playful to be found here, projecting subtle micro-house manipulations atop the song's buzzing synth background. Kg's "Ig Farbenvorschlag Remix", meanwhile, adds swirling drums, guitars and white noise to the already dense original, but otherwise leaves the structure largely intact.

The "0078h" single offers two subtler reinterpretations. A concert version of "Gone", replete with live drumming and haunting electric guitar, demonstrates that M83 have as much in common with crescendo-rockers like Explosions in the Sky as they do with their electronic contemporaries. The cover of "In Church" from M83's psych-folk labelmates Cyann & Ben replaces the overbearing atmosphere of the original with a more stately, vaguely baroque arrangement. The dramatic shifts in texture and dynamics that marked the original are replaced here by haunting, reverb-laden vocals and fragile plucked acoustic guitars. While not nearly as powerful as M83's version, Cyann & Ben's rendition of "In Church" is as different in effect as it is in aesthetic, and certainly a worthwhile and interesting B-side.

There's not a dud to be found on either of these singles, but perhaps unsurprisingly, there's nothing really essential, either. One of M83's greatest strengths is the unflinching intensity they bring to their music-- in the interest of reinventing it, that intensity can't help but be disrupted. Those who are madly in love with this group should find these recast textures and reconfigured songs engaging, if not revelatory of hidden subtleties. If nothing else, these two singles prove without a doubt that M83 have found something all their own-- something too unique and stunning to be effaced by even the most dramatic interpretation.