IF IT ISN’T worth taking time to enjoy, then it doesn’t typically come from France. Soundboard-twisting Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez, known with his entourage as M83, perhaps represents his country’s long tradition of unhurried pleasure better than last year’s saveur de l'instant, the raucous duo Justice. His albums—five of them since 2001—are full of meandering atmospheres, gentle ambience, and at times heart-wrenching romanticism. And despite the more structured nature of his latest effort, the 2008 favorite Saturdays=Youth, M83 transferred that deep moodiness into a hazy, dreamlike hour of majesty last weekend at Irving Plaza in Manhattan.

For all its fascination with the 80s, hearing Saturdays=Youth live is a thoroughly 21^st-century experience. Neither a retro dance party nor a pedal-affected, cerebral rock performance, it puts a modern spin—standing still listening to electronic music—on two rich performance archetypes: Justice’s thrashing discotheque antics and My Bloody Valentine’s ear-murdering oceans of distortion, both of which have been heard in New York clubs in the past few months. M83 falls somewhere in between. We saw nearly as few instruments on stage Saturday night as appear on a cross-emblazoned Justice platform—a Macbook Pro and a neon-lit custom effects box provided much of the evening’s deafening noise. But instead of the sweaty dance eros, M83’s presence is engulfing, stunning—like a seductive trance that whispers in your ear even while it shakes your bones, and disappears before you’ve regained your senses.

Gonzalez, the group’s shy mastermind, is an anti-front man. He didn’t speak a word from the stage, other than the occasional, humbled-sounding “thank you” after a particularly thunderous applause. He began the set alone, spending a long twenty minutes toying with his magic box—cranking out layers that sounded like, by turns, thunderstorms, weeping rain, a monster’s thudding footsteps. Evocative and cinematic, almost as visual as the movies he claims inspire him more than hearing other people’s music. It felt carefully scripted, as if Gonzales were following a storyboard, though he might well have been improvising.

The M83 band is little more than backup, though the energy in the room skyrocketed when they joined Gonzalez on stage. He seems particularly at home across the keys from Morgan Kibby, the angel-voiced prima donna with whom he shares the vocal duties on Saturdays=Youth. (Unsure of his own singing, he often employs guests for moral support.) Her bright smile and metallic shirt sparkling, Kibby performed with intense feeling, closing her eyes, gazing heavenward, tossing back her Amelie bob. Facing one another, Gonzalez and Kibby were the perfect partners in crime, each confidently anticipating every note and closely watching one another for cues. Without altering this stage setup, they swooned through M83’s hits, emphasizing new numbers (and obvious crowd-pleasers) like “Kim & Jessie,” “Graveyard Girl,” and “We Own the Sky.”

I’m of the firm opinion that standing still watching four well-behaved guys play instruments is fundamentally boring and altogether too common in our age of disappearing virtuosos and unenlightened stage presence. M83 admirably compensated by forgoing an opening act and wrapping up after a tight 90 minutes—just long enough for the stardust from their shtick to settle. An hour and half is plenty long to stand still, and just long enough for a soft-spoken Frenchman to prove himself a more compelling musician than the megalomaniacs with whom he'd share the stage at Madison Square Garden the following night.