M83 - I Wrote You A Letter

With the indie era of the 2010s long gone, and the atmospheric rock experience of “Fantasy” (2023) also left behind, M83 – or rather, de facto, Anthony Gonzalez – seems to have given up any interest in the charts and in producing what would once have been called music for “hipsters” or “indieheads,” depending on which term was more fashionable at the time. The fact is that twenty-five years have now passed, a quarter of a century since the French project debuted with the self-titled album “M83” in 2001, and Gonzalez's latest work, “I Wrote You A Letter”, seems intent on closing a circle.

The new album is in fact a return to the group's origins, to its 2000s productions: an atmospheric, psychedelic indie, dreamy and solemn, making heavy use of a wall of sound bordering on shoegaze. The songs resonate with epic grandeur and refinement, and the aim seems to be to create high-impact sonic landscapes. Gonzalez has said in an interview that the music on this record is in fact built for: “Great adventures, feeling alive and forgetting about the world.” A search for escapism that, given what's happening in this very “lively” 2026, is certainly understandable.
The album, with only nine tracks, rests on two elements: compact, towering walls of sound and rarefied, melodic ambient stretches. Gonzalez continually shifts from one to the other, working on impressions and emotions, discarding anything that might be “catchy” and testing even his longtime, most loyal fans. You can hear it in “Opera,” a composition in two parts: the first an absorbing crescendo driven by synths and ethereal vocals, the second an ambient coda complete with a “churchy” organ section and angelic choirs to close it out. The ambition behind the construction and arrangement is clear, to the point that at times it sounds like Jon Hopkins or Anders Trentemøller.

The journey continues on “Siren,” amid glitchy moments and distorted sax, and “Behold… Beast” (again split into two parts of the same song), in a further ambient exploration built on a dialogue between sax and piano. “Aged” goes even further: after an intro that could be called “bait,” briefly bringing back the familiar indie synth style most fans know from the golden days of “Hurry Up, We're Dreaming” (2011), it then settles into a neo-classical reinvention with pianistic digressions caressing a sweet, romantic central melody in the style of Claude Debussy. The flight of fancy that is “Feeding Time,” while still flirting with ambient leanings, is the only track to fully resurrect M83's “indie” soul, the most hopeful and enthusiastic side of it, with a dissertation of pure indietronica that sounds truly out of time and, on this record, out of space too (in a good way).

What can be said is that this latest M83 work, as much as or more than many other classic albums from the project – perhaps only the second one, "Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts" (2003), could be considered an equivalent – is certainly not meant to be listened to at a party, while driving, or even at the gym or during leisure moments. For those willing, it should be listened to with devoted attention, perhaps in the dark with a few candles lit, or while walking through a forest or along the shore at sunset. "I Wrote You A Letter" is further proof of M83's extraordinary musical craftsmanship, but also of its determination not to settle into a comfort zone and to keep challenging itself, never taking its success or popularity for granted.

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01/10/2026