Everybody Hertz

Air’s 1998 Moon Safari long player is one of those albums that, like Moby’s Play and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours features in the record collections of people who don’t really collect records. By this I mean that Moon Safari was probably bought by legions of people who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves fans of the band. It was merely a, god forbid, ‘nice record’.

The studio follow-up (after The Virgin Suicides OST), last year’s 10,000Hz Legend, was an altogether darker affair, only yielding its considerable rewards after a degree of investment by the listener. Consequently, though failing to match the commercial success of the duo’s debut this second album established JB Dunckel and Nicolas Godin as France’s most credible dance act, despite strong competition from Daft Punk, among others.

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. Also included is an unreleased track from the …Legend sessions titled ‘The Way You Look Tonight’.

Despite my initial concerns of the ‘It ain’t broke so why fix it?’ variety, there are a few gems in here. Banghalter’s treatment of ‘Don’t Be Light’ is every bit as brilliant as Mr Oizo’s is god-awful; Adrian Sherwood gives ‘How Does It Make You Feel’ a dubby, dopey feel and Modjo’s version of ‘People In The City’ is probably the only track that Moon Safari devotees will recognise as Air. If Martin McCann isn’t playing this at Sunday night’s Hilton and Edwards night at Spy he soon will be. Hacker, Malibu and Jack Lahana’s efforts, while interesting, don’t really add anything to the original tracks, and final track ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ is a sparse yet strangely baroque vocal affair that reminded me of Kraftwerk’s slower moments, but without the Germans’ sense of humour and madcap antics.

One for the fans, certainly, and perhaps for the more open-minded Euro-electro fans.