French Smoothies return to lunar landscapes
Messieurs Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel – better known as French electronic duo Air – should really have titled this album Moon Safari 2. Recorded in their plush northern Paris studio, Atlas, their fifth long-playing outing doesn’t feature anything quite as immediately catchy as ‘Sexy Boy’, but is as moodily Moogy, kitschily retro and futuristically funky as their classic 1998 debut.
The band handle all vocal duties themselves – with lots of interesting effects and distortion – and many of the tracks are underpinned by the solid grooves provided by guest percussionist Joey Waronker (who played with them on their Close Up tour last year).
What are the songs about? Who cares? Air are lightweight heavyweights. If you’re seeking some tunes to soundtrack a long journey, post club chill-out or erotic adventure, look no further. Love 2 is a noir-ish art-house movie set on the deck of the Starship Enterprise.
Air have retained their trademark dream-pop sound, though they have added a few interesting new elements to the mix.
Read More A characteristically gorgeous slice of dreamy electro-pop (though perhaps slightly more tense than the supremely languid, blissed-out epics of yore), ‘Surfing’ is one of the standout tracks of Air’s excellent third album..
Read More Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space. A few tracks into Air’s stunning show at the Olympia and the redoubtable Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel are already gently elevating us to a higher plane of consciousness.
Read More Whether it's a four-minute love song about a caress that lasts ten seconds, a journey through the universe in a silver plane or a simple escape form war, Air promise that you'll never have a bad trip with their music. Danielle Brigham talks to Jean-Benoit Dunckel, one half of the enigmatic French duo.
Read More Très formidable. A lush collection of chilled cosmic electronica is just what a weary post-Chrimbo body needs. What’s more, nobody does it better than that duo with those haughty sounding names, JB Duncknel and Nicolas Godin.
Read More If it's glacial Gallic cool you're after, look no further than Air who return to Dublin on February 15 for a show in the Olympia.
Read More "Air’s dreamy atmospherics are lost in the project and Baricco’s monotone dominates the proceedings, because this is, technically, a spoken word album"
Read More Everybody Hertz is an album of re-mixes of three selected tracks from the previous album, mixed by luminaries such as Daft Punk's Thomas Banghalter, Mr Oizo, Malibu, Adrian Sherwood, Modjo, The Neptunes and the Hacker
Read More Air are keen to talk about intellectualism and art. fine, says James Kelleher, just so long as we can also talk about blowjobs. Maintenant, read on…
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All the while there were moments of beauty and depth, but they were never quite sustained, never quite took off
Read More 'Electronic Performers' lifts the curtain on Air 2001, and you soon realise you're not in for an easy Moon Safari-style ride
Read More The hiatus between albums is often an excuse for record companies to recycle and repackage the most outrageous muck imaginable in the interests of exploiting an artist's marketability - particularly when the act in question has produced a twenty-four carat classic of modern times, and there's no indication of a follow-up in the foreseeable future.
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