White Lies made a pretty confusing debut this year. They had some excitement-factor about them but it turned out that they are rather a latecomers of an era than pioneers of a new one. This line of UK-indie needs a heavier blood-refreshment than White Lies can provide. This way they are just another clone of the neo-Joy Division movement. Nevermind, they have some ok songs and E.S.T. which was in Gossip Girl is my favourite.

After the amazing Crystal Castles remix of their first hit, Death, now another heavyweight of a totally different scene chose to work on Nothing to Give. Anthony Gonzalez aka M83 reworked it. And believe, it’s pretty damn reworked. I mean he turned the song into something beautiful and injected a huge amount of hard sadness into it. The vocalwork is just breathtaking, the echo and the cut-up combinations of wordparts makes the whole thing apocalyptic and the never-resolved tension builds up. Brilliant. Thanks for the track to Battery in Your Leg.

White Lies - Nothing to Give (M83 remix) [mediafire] // [ysi]

Best Albums of 2008: 15-11

15. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

France is not only the cutting edge of electronic music but there may be something in the water there and they have a talent for tap in to the heartbeat of the pop music generation. With the themes of love, teenagers…Anthony Gonzalez manages to mush together these elements into a great shoegaze-synth odyssey. M83 songs are perfect transmitters for something transcendent that has its roots in our childhood.

M83 - You Appearing [zshare] // [ysi]

14. College - Secret Diary

Staying in France and with the aesthetics of the 80s, College aka David Greiller made the debut LP of Valerie and it lives up to the expectations. As a concept album, it is about secrets and stalking and peeping, forbidden love and its secrecy. There’s even a special edition in VHS format! How cool is that? Accompanying the theme, the music is the best retro-future synths you can imagine and when there are vocals, they are like if they sounded from another world.

College - She Never Came Back [zshare] // [ysi]

13. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

Dancing on the edge of weird ambient sounds and the hereditary indie-noise of the 90s, Bradford Cox created one of the best chaotic/escapist pop record of the year. It’s hard to give a pop dressing gown to experimental attitude and imagination and this album (along with the M83) is a perfect example that this is not an either-or decision between art and pop but the situation is much more complex. Deerhunter kept its intergrity in opening up.

Deerhunter - Never Stops [zshare] // [ysi]

12. Jaguar Love - Take Me to the Sea

As a lovechild of two amazing bands after their splits, Jaguar Love started with raised expectations. I’m not a fanatic fan-type who weeps at the split and then curses everything the ex-bandmates do afterwards out of resentment. Take Me to the Sea is a great indie album, full of energy, screams, giant guitar-waves and tragedies. The shifts and variations between sweet-sad melodies and the explosions give band an undeniable individual charm.

Jaguar Love - Georgia [zshare] // [ysi]

11. Foals - Antidotes

Oxford 5-piece, Foals, made into the list with their awesome debut, Antidotes. The album is full of hits and tracks representing a unique fingerprint. Futuristic indie-disco along the UK lines. Strange dance rhythms, post-punk dryness and the whole sound could be described with a glass-sound allegory or something. Both sensitive and aristocratically cold, Antidotes rocks the disco balls and even touches some parts of some souls.

Foals - Electric Bloom [zshare] // [ysi]

It’s been quite a while since the new album of M83 came out. I really like M83 but I haven’t written about it so now, with the DatA remix of the new single, Kim and Jessie, I have a reason.

The fourt studio album Saturdays = Youth came out on 15th April. Anthony Gonzalez from France always made beautiful melancholic music from coming from behind the veil that separates us from the other world. The overture You Appearing is one of his best songs ever. According to Gonzalez, the album is about the 80s, the wasted youth, teenagers. Hip themes. Buy it here.

The next single will be out July 21. Kim and Jessie in the original is a weird pop song with extraordinary waves of instruments. Great stuff and no compromises, the catchy sound is a product of post-rock and shoegazing aesthetics. My Bloody Valentine jumps to my mind. He got remix-attention from hip acts like Yuksek for the previous single, for this, the DatA edit really fits. It strengthens the original otherworldly feeling but gives it a La Boum-esqe twist. DatA is a great guy btw, his remixes of Big Face, Tepr and Chromeo could rule the dancefloor. France at its best.

M83 - You Appearing [zshare] // M83 - You Appearing [ysi]

M83 - Kim and Jessie (DatA remix) [zshare] // M83 - Kim and Jessie (DatA remix) [ysi]