Fantasy is the kind of album you listen to intently and without skipping a track. It feels at odds with today’s hurried, Tiktok-ready music economy. And yet, songs on the album are already sound bites, perfectly capable of existing par eux-mêmes, each a soundtrack for the adventure-starved and nostalgic. The Fantasy tour brings its namesake album to life with an atmospheric light story and instrumentals that beg to be heard live. On Saturday, April 15, Houston had their first chance since 2016 to hear the ambient stylings of Anthony Gonzalez, and his band M83, live on the White Oak Music Hall Lawn.
Rachika Nayar opened the night with a soundscape of diffusive, guitar-forward electronic tones. Nayar utilizes loop pedals to the brink of their ability, creating alien, pulsating waves of sound, each chord melting in to the next, until the audience lost itself in her tapestry of cadence. A lightning storm began to appear behind the audience adding to the spirit of Nayar’s performance but, perhaps, forcing her set to end early, though it wasn’t entirely clear.
M83 performed their newest hits from Fantasy, starting the show with “Water Deep,” “Oceans Niagara“, and “Amnesia.” As the lyrics “beyond adventure” rang through the night and lightning danced across the horizon the crowd really began to fall into the fantastical world that Gonzalez composed throughout the album. By the end of the show, concertgoers were energized and content with the aurally comprehensive experience and, to be honest, could have left happy. But it was then that the band pulled out their biggest hit to date as an encore: “Midnight City“. The first note of the song caused a wave of screams as everyone realized what song the band was playing and every lyric was echoed by the audience. The encore ended with “Mirror” and “Outro,” just in time for the storm to roll in. M83’s international Fantasy tour continues now to New York before making its way through Canada, Mexico, the Middle East, and Europe.
Interesting fact: M83’s namesake is a galaxy far, far away. Messier 83 is a barred spiral galaxy about 15 million light-years away from our own. It was discovered by the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1752 but was named by another French astronomer, Charles Messier, who was cataloging nebulous objects. Aptly, ‘nebulous’ seems like a perfect adjective for M83’s music.
About Author
