French synth wizard Anthony Gonzalez is releasing Junk, his newest album as M83, on April 8th. It's Gonzalez's first major release since recording the soundtrack for the Tom Cruise sci-fi movie Oblivion in 2013, and it's the first M83 album since 2011's double LP Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. (That album featured "Midnight City," the band's biggest hit to date and one of the best songs of the '10s.)
Details are slim beyond the album's release date — its cover and track list haven't been made available yet — but the album has been finished since December, and Gonzales described its sound in an interview with Entertainment Weekly around the same time. "It's a very strong album with a lot of eclecticism," said Gonzales. "It's very epic... It's also quite different from the previous albums which is what I'm the most proud of." He's also heading out on an international tour to support the record. It starts in New Orleans on April 6th and wraps in Budapest on August 15th, and you can see the full list of dates here. If you're a fan of galaxy-scale electro-pop, this just became an exciting day.
"Anything we create today is going to end up being space junk"
Update March 1st 2:45PM ET: Pitchfork has shared a bunch of new details regarding Junk's release, including its album cover, tracklist, and lead single "Do It, Try It." The album includes guests like Beck and Susanne Sundfør, and its cover is... well, you should see it for yourself. (It's embedded below.) "Anything we create today is going to end up being space junk at one point anyway," wrote Gonzalez in a press release. "I have this image of pieces of humanity floating in space, lost forever... People will listen to an album, for instance, and just pick a track they like to put on a playlist. They're not going to take the time to listen to an album anymore because they have to jump on the next thing." Here's Junk's aforementioned insane cover:
