M83, aka Anthony Gonzalez, has frequently utilized different collaborators at each stage in the career span of M83 (whose astronomical moniker comes from the abbreviated name of “Messier 83” – a spiral galaxy fifteen million light years away in the Hydra constellation). The first two M83 album releases – the group’s self-titled 2001 debut and 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts – both featured Gonzalez’s childhood friend Nicolas Fromageau, now of Parisian “cold gaze” outfit Team Ghost (whom Gonzalez also hired to do an official remix of “Midnight City”). Keeping it all in the family, Gonzalez’s brother Yann contributed significantly to M83’s 2005 soaring prog-shoegaze-ambient magnum opus, Before the Dawn Heals Us. Singer-songwriter and actor Morgan Kibby, meanwhile, proved a vital creative foil as well as an ethereal, female Greek Chorus vocal counterpoint on M83’s breakthrough albums, 2008’s Saturdays=Youth and Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (which also featured an astral cameo from Zola Jesus). And in the immediate years preceding JUNK, Gonzalez became in demand as a soundtrack composer for hire, clarifying the promise of M83’s already cinematic sweep in actual movie theaters with scores for 2013’s Tom Cruise sci-fi blockbuster Oblivion and his brother Yann’s 2014 directorial debut You and the Night. New original M83 tracks also received prominent placement in the soundtracks to the hit film series Divergent.