Track Listings
| 1. Gauntlet |
| 2. The Fields (Part II) |
| 3. Calimoxcho |
| 4. Even As We Speak |
| 5. The Fields |
| 6. King Ferdinand |
| 7. Tournament |
| 8. Bath House |
| 9. Topsfield State Fair |
| 10. Wallet Corner |
| 11. Dresden Promenade |
| 12. The Look Of Love |
| 13. Shadows |
| 14. At The Crossroads |
Red Cities,Chris Brokaw,Atavistic Records,Indie Rock,Instrumental Rock,Pop,Popular Music,Post-Rock/Experimental,Rock,Rock/Pop
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Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83 Manufacturer: Mute U.S. ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Similar Items:
ASIN: B0002IQB1W Release Date: 2004-07-27 |
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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:
worst dream/ambient pop ive ever heard..........2006-10-19
Wow!.......2006-10-08
Musical Snowstorm.......2006-07-17
3 and a HALF stars.......2006-07-11
buzz.......2006-05-31
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Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83 Manufacturer: EMI Int'l ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B0000AISL4 Release Date: 2003-09-29 |
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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:
nothing special.......2005-01-08
Sonic Brilliance!!.......2004-10-10
Synthesizer "Loveless".......2004-06-23
A do-it-yourself lobotomy kit........2004-02-20
Insipid crud for the microcephalic set.
A Truly Amazing Album.......2004-02-13
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Vast Low Cities
Vervein Manufacturer: Scenery Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Similar Items:
ASIN: B0007XL388 Release Date: 2003-06-27 |
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From the time they open their lips on the one-minute opener to their self-released debut, "One Whole Year," it's apparent that this San Francisco quartet is intent on treating us to gorgeously layered, hushed vocals a la This Mortal Coil's Rutkowski sisters or His Name is Alive's Livonia, bouncy melodies as unforgettable as The Go-Go's, and a mesmerizing pop sensibility we haven't heard since femme Brit poppers like Lush, The Primitives, and The Heart Throbs. The aural syrup of "Ace" features a sparkling, Red House Painters-styled solo from co-founder Esther Reyes and while the entire album is best appreciated loud and under the influence of headphones, I'd like to call particular attention to the off-the-wall harmonics of "Mush." Not since the glorious days of the Millington sisters and their archetypal female rock band, Fanny, have we been as impressed with the vocal interplay as we are here with the duo of the other co-founding guitarist Jess Congdon and bassist Rachel Fuller. Of course, having said that, the rough-edged "Mockingbird" immediately recalls 90s faves, The Heart Throbs, an impression reinforced on the swirling, psychedelically tinged "Station," (listen to Cleopatra Grip's "Calavera" as a reference point), which again features some stellar strumming from Reyes. She also pulls double duty on cello, adding a warm glow to "Cautious," and an air of heartbreaking mystery to the slower-than-molasses "Three." Kudos, also to that neat introductory solo on the latter, a daring move on what is otherwise an upbeat collection of pure pop bliss. If Jess and Rachel aren't singing to each other on "Fields of Green," I'd like to wrap my arms around both of them and go for a long stroll in the park, listening to this incredibly romantic cuddlefest, perfectly suited for some high-spirited makeup sex. The best "vocal" album of the year, Vast Low Cities is also stacked to the rafters with lushly romantic pop songs that'll have this listener's ears glued to the speakers, hotly anticipating their follow-up. -Jeff Penzcak, fakejazz.com
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Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83 Manufacturer: EMI ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B0001CVD4Y Release Date: 2004-02-09 |
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Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
M83 Manufacturer: Virgin ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B00008NF70 Release Date: 2003-04-15 |
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Customer Reviews:
calm down.......2003-06-19
Electronic waves of wall-of-noise beauty.......2003-06-07
Pitchforkmedia Review; 9.2 out of 10.0 . Amazing..........2003-05-20
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
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Red Cities
Chris Brokaw Manufacturer: Atavistic Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B000066JHJ Release Date: 2002-06-04 |
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Guitar Stories.......2002-07-15
Chris has something to say with his guitar voice that is original and personal while evoking lost instrumental demos by Verlaine, Richards, Drake, Bach, Segovia and the Stooges.
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Twin Cities Live
Bryan Duncan Manufacturer: Red Road Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B000OY3SS8 |
Product Description
Tracks: Clap Your Hands Blue Skies Recovery Step By Step Radio Rehab Into My Heart A Believer Love Takes Time Don't Help The Devil Lunatic-Run Asylum No Words You Only You Until You Know Never Lied To You Love You With My Life It Gets Better Penticostal Church Joy Is A Singable Thing Recorded live on June 13, 2003 at Heart Alive (Minneapolis, MN)Rock Music: