Fantasy

Fantasy is a spellbinding return to form for the French producer. [May 2023, p.31]

The band crafted their most personal and revealing album to date by allowing themselves to play with minimalism in a way that creates an atmosphere of honesty. Fantasy has M83 at their most fearless.

At almost 70 minutes long, at times the album begins to run together past the point of cohesion. Despite this, Fantasy, which features some of the most singing and lyrical work done by Gonzalez, sits as a deeply personal and ambitious record that shines.

While Fantasy is not a perfect return by any means, it’s a return that makes you remember M83’s power to combat the static void at the core of many of us. In place of that void, listeners are filled with the feeling that they’re part of something bigger and freed — free to fall in love with dreaming again.

Though not his strongest effort by any means, Fantasy proves that his songs can soar even if he dials it back.

Fantasy isn't for the skeptical; Gonzalez demands you dive in with him, and a lot of fans will be happy to take the plunge.

Some of the most spotlessly produced music I’ve heard in my lifetime, let alone this year. Gonzalez unfortunately continues to struggle with cohesion and distilling his musical ideas down to their most valuable elements, but his latest full-length is an undeniable improvement over his mid-late 2010’s output, and hopefully the beginning of a long upward trajectory for the M83 brand.

It's a confident and proper return, written squarely from Gonzalez's comfort zone with a few fun twists from its undersung predecessor; It's exactly what we needed from M83 right now, even if it's sometimes a little too extra.

Gonzalez’s tendency for self-indulgence and penchant for repetition keep Fantasy from reaching the previously attained heights of albums like Saturdays=Youth. Yet, even as M83’s throwback sound has lost some of its novelty due, in part, to pop culture becoming saturated with (comparatively vapid) ’80s nostalgia, Gonzalez’s non-ironic sensibilities and bright-eyed ambition effortlessly outshine even his most reverent copycats.

What Fantasy is missing isn’t any one synth preset, or a cultural reference for the next season of Stranger Things to popularize. It just lacks urgency.

Like many other soundtracks, ‘Fantasy’ creates a mood - nostalgic; euphoric - and there’s a clear thread throughout that ties these thirteen tracks together. But soundtracks are also often intended to feature in the background, and ultimately ‘Fantasy’ too easily fades into it.

Though the album gets a little messier and more unfocused from this point, ‘Oceans Niagara’ points to a beautifully bright future for the M83 project.

Providing a sweet escape from the overwhelming world that inspired it, M83’s Fantasy is one that listeners will drift in and out of, but it retains the exhilarating signature sound that the multi-instrumentalist is rightly admired for.