Air Albums (6)
What The Critics Say
For part of Air's Pocket Symphony tour, Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin played shows with only drummer Joey Waronker as support, forcing the band to strip its songs down to their essences. They stick with that lineup on Love 2, which delivers some of the most Air-like music to the band's name, and with good reason: this is the first time Dunckel and Godin have produced their own album. The duo tends to follow its more ambitious work with more accessible material and Love 2 is no exception, replacing Pocket Symphony's exotic, experimental bent with a renewed emphasis on the pair's quintessential sound. Godin and Dunckel dig deep into their arsenal of vintage electronic gear, topping those burbles, buzzes, and whooshes with some strings here and a few fuzzed-out guitars and basslines there. Above all, atmosphere is the focus, and early on, the album finds Air at their most confectionary: "Love" is irresistibly pretty, offsetting a glockenspiel that sparkles like grains of sugar with brisk shakers. From there, Love 2 sweeps away any remnants of Pocket Symphony's expansive melancholy with concentrated happiness -- these are some of Air's most lighthearted songs since Talkie Walkie. "Be a Bee," with its aptly buzzing and hovering synths and spy movie theme guitars, could be one of the most stylish novelty pop songs ever. However, the album is often at its best when Air give listeners more in the way of vocals and hooks. The elegantly psychedelic "So Light Is Her Footfall" and the hazy soft rock sunbeam that is "Sing Sang Sung" expand on the band's pop side just enough, while "Heaven's Light" crystallizes the gorgeous retro-futuristic sci-fi romance Air have crafted since their Premiers Symptomes days. Indeed, Love 2's title and album artwork -- which features the duo sitting by the shore gazing pensively into the mid-distance -- play up Air's image as makers of mood music extraordinaire, albeit with a bit of an ironic wink. The music does just as deft a job of negotiating the fine line between sophistication and schmaltz; Love 2's centerpiece, "Tropical Disease," has it both ways, going from dramatic to melodramatic to playful and back again as it covers rippling pianos, slightly goofy-sounding flutes, and a decidedly seductive coda. Dunckel and Godin add just a little tension and darkness to the album's sweetness and light as it unfolds, especially on "Eat My Beat," an impressive showcase for the immediacy Waronker's drumming brings to all of these songs. Air remain a deceptively subtle band, and repeated listens to Love 2 reveal that Godin and Dunckel aren't just remaining true to their aesthetic here, but that even a smaller-scale album from the duo has plenty of wit and surprises to offer. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Ever since Moon Safari was hailed as an instant classic, Air have swung back and forth between the experimental and accessible sides that Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel united so perfectly on their debut. 10,000 Hz Legend might have been too grandiose and aggressively experimental for some Air fans, but Talkie Walkie sometimes felt as if the duo was presenting the most widely palatable version of their music possible. On Pocket Symphony, Dunckel and Godin find a balance between pretty and inventive that they haven't struck since, well, Moon Safari, even though it isn't nearly as immediate -- even by Air's standards, this is an extremely introspective and atmospheric album. It's beyond clichéd to call the duo's music filmic; nevertheless, "Space Maker" and "Night Sight" play like the album's opening titles and ending credits, bracketing a set of songs that are sadder and wiser than anything Air has done since The Virgin Suicides (particularly "Lost Message," which could have easily appeared on that soundtrack). Made around the same time Dunckel and Godin were working with Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon (who also appear here) on Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55 and Dunckel was recording his solo project Darkel, Pocket Symphony could be seen as part of a loose trilogy; if so, it's more in line with 5:55's moody romanticism than Darkel's hyper-pop (where, apparently, any lighter-hearted tracks along the lines of Talkie Walkie's "Alpha Beta Gaga" or "Surfing on a Rocket" ended up). However, Pocket Symphony doesn't feel as serenely untouchable as some of Air's previous work, and these darker cracks and wrinkles give it character. These songs are often unsettling, but gently so, like dreams that are still vivid but hard to explain upon waking. The Neil Hannon-sung "Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping" is the most obvious example of Pocket Symphony's fever dream atmosphere, but there are plenty of others: "Photograph," a quintessentially sensuous Air track, gives the impression of something a little sinister occurring just out of frame; "Redhead Girl" is a lush meditation on unrequited love so paralyzing that time itself stops. The entire album deals with toxic love and its fallout, but Dunckel and Godin alternate between romanticizing heartbreak and showing just how dreary it can be -- although, skilled mood-makers that they are, they manage to make dreary sound pretty romantic, too. The deceptively delicate single "Once Upon a Time" darkens its fairy tale imagery with the fact that once upon a time might be never, while the outstanding "One Hell of a Party," which features Jarvis Cocker on vocals, presents a breakup as a hangover (a sentiment Cocker also explored brilliantly on Pulp's This Is Hardcore). Pocket Symphony pairs Air with producer Nigel Godrich, which is an inspired choice -- not just because Godrich has a similarly atmospheric touch and adds lots of fascinating sonic details, but because he helps Air keep the album intimate, not polished into a state of distant perfection. "Left Bank," which blends humming with a cello and captures Godin's acoustic guitar so clearly it sounds like he's strumming it behind you, is a gorgeous example of how well this collaboration works. The Japanese influence on Talkie Walkie and Air's music for Lost in Translation is deepened on Pocket Symphony, with shamisen and koto (which Godin spent a year learning to play) adding to its ethereal beauty, particularly on "Mer du Japon." Musically and thematically, this is some of Air's most elegant, mature music; it does what it does so compellingly that any attempts to be "poppy" would miss the point. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Artistic development doesn't always improve an artist's work, as the members of Air discovered when their second album, 2001's 10,000 Hz Legend, disappointed fans and critics expecting another pop masterpiece to rank with their debut, Moon Safari. 10,000 Hz Legend buried the duo's clear melodic sense underneath an avalanche of rigid performances, claustrophobic productions, and a restless experimentalism that rarely allowed listeners to enjoy what they were hearing. Gone was the freshness evident on Moon Safari: the alien made familiar, the concept that electronic dance could be turned into a user-friendly medium, the illustration of simplicity and space as assets, not liabilities. Fortunately, Air learned from their mistakes -- or, at least, their limitations -- leading up to the recording of third album Talkie Walkie, and the happy result is a solid middle ground between both of their previous records. The features are kept to a minimum and the tracks are constructed to sound no more complex than they need to be, even though Air risk the assumption that Talkie Walkie is a simple album. While there's nothing present to compete with the plodding glory of "Sexy Boy," Talkie Walkie ultimately succeeds because of Dunckel and Godin's renewed contentment to produce the tracks they do better than any other -- ones with a surface prettiness but no great depth. (It's no mystery why they've been tapped for several scores.) Ironically, the one track here that shrugs off the simplicity of electronic pop is a track first heard in a film, "Alone in Kyoto," an impressionistic string piece originally composed for the Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
'City Reading (Tre Storie Western)'
Release Date 1/1/2003
Tracks 19
Label Source/Record Makers
See Album Tracklist and Review
'10,000 Hz Legend'
Release Date 5/29/2001
Tracks 11
Label Astralwerks
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Eager to prove their songwriting smarts and knowledge of traditionalist pop on their sophomore work, French band Air pulled back slightly from the milky synth pop of their 1998 debut, Moon Safari. 10,000 Hz Legend is a darker work, just as contemplative and unhurried as its predecessor, but part of a gradual move from drifting, almost pastoral melancholia to a downright post-modern helplessness in league with Radiohead. Air are still tremendously effective producers, and have actually expanded their palate with a surprising array of pop instrumentation (acoustic guitars, flutes, pianos, a harmonica, harps, and many strings) to file alongside the countless trilling synthesizers and machine sequencers. The two lead-off tracks, "Electronic Performers" and "How Does It Make You Feel," are breathtaking productions that exploit the same robot-weariness tendencies that made "Sexy Boy" (from Moon Safari) an alternative hit. Still, those detached retro-vocoder treatments sound so much more passé in 2001 than when the duo first tried them out in 1996. Jason Falkner and Beck, a pair of equally hardworking slacker-pop icons, appear (respectively) on the next two tracks, the tongue-in-cheek single "Radio #1" and an excellent morning-after jam named "The Vagabond." Again, the production is stellar, but these find Air stranded between art rock and pop, caught in the trap of trying to make great pop music yet never sounding particularly studied or concerned about it. Falkner pops up again on "Lucky and Unhappy" and "People in the City," a pair of album standouts that subvert any pop inclinations with a raft of bridges and breakdowns among the layers of production. "Wonder Milky Bitch" is another precisely studied track, a haze of lunar-desert synth pop directly evocative of country-pop classicist Lee Hazlewood, and "Radian" brings Air back to the instrumental textures of their early work. Fans and involved listeners are definitely rewarded with increased dividends after multiple listens, but even they may wish for an album that harked back to the simpler days of the Premiers Symptomes EP and Moon Safari. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Although electronica had its fair share of chillout classics prior to the debut of Air, the lion's share were either stark techno (Warp) or sample-laden trip-hop (Mo' Wax). But while Air had certainly bought records and gear based on the artists that had influenced them, they didn't just regurgitate (or sample) them; they learned from them, digesting their lessons in a way that gave them new paths to follow. They were musicians in a producer's world, and while no one could ever accuse their music of being danceable, it delivered the emotional power of great dance music even while pushing the barriers of what "electronica" could or should sound like. (Never again would Saint Etienne be the only band of a certain age to reveal their fondness for Burt Bacharach.) The Modulor EP had displayed astonishing powers of mood and texture, but it was Air's full-length debut, Moon Safari, that proved they could also write accessible pop songs like "Sexy Boy" and "Kelly Watch the Stars." But it wasn't all pop. The opener, "La Femme d'Argent," was an otherworldly beginning, with a slinky bassline evoking Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson and a slow glide through seven minutes of growing bliss (plus a wonderful keyboard solo). The vocoderized "Remember" relaunched a wave of robot pop that hadn't been heard in almost 20 years, and the solos for harmonica and French horn on "Ce Matin La" made the Bacharach comparisons direct. Unlike most electronica producers, Air had musical ideas that stretched beyond samplers or keyboards, and Moon Safari found those ideas wrapped up in music that was engaging, warm, and irresistible. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
