Maps & M83 - To The Sky / We Are The Sky (Sonic Cathedral)
UK release date: 7 April 2008
This is the musical equivalent of wife swap, with two bands let loose on each other's music, setting a few house rules and sparking a few creative fires before returning back to their own spouses.
Thankfully there's no spitting venom from either as the experiment works out. With Maps up first for dissection, M83 find a heady euphoria in the slow moving To The Sky, ending with weightless vocals and big, almost orchestral designs and beats.
Maps, meanwhile, introduce a hyperactive house beat to the falsetto harmonies of We Own The Sky, an initial wow and flutter giving way to a mix whose consistency is almost that of polystyrene, the harmonies straining for the heights.
An interesting experiment from Sonic Cathedral, this, and one that works handsomely. If the idea catches on, surely the Weakest Link is next?
share: 
