The Null Device

The Graun reviews the upcoming Air album, Talkie Walkie:

Dunckel and Godin have never been reticent about their Gallic origins - Moon Safari's cover billed them as Air: French Band - but this really ups the ante. The duo's tremulous sank-'eaven-for-leedle-gulls accents would have been rejected as too caricatured by the producer of 'Allo 'Allo. There is a laudable bullishness about this decision. English-speaking countries have never really bought into vocalists with thick French accents, unless you count Charles Aznavour, and by comparison with Dunckel and Godin, he sounds like Chas and Dave. However, even the most committed Francophile would be forced to admit that the duo's voices are slightly distracting, particularly when deployed in conjunction with some of the album's more imponder able lyrics: "Stay like ziss, on ze 'airs of my chest," implores Run.

While music as diaphanous as Air's is unlikely to support the full-throated blast of, say, Robert Plant, Dunckel and Godin's voices are weedy enough to bring out the inner bully in the mildest soul. You suspect that even the members of Belle and Sebastian would consider pinching their lunch money and flushing their heads down the toilet for a laugh.

Other than that, though, the album apparently reclaims the territory of Moon Safari, which can't be a bad thing (I, for one, found 10,000Hz Legend underwhelming). Of course, since Air are signed to EMI, chances are it's not coming out on a non-defective CD around here. Maybe if they're still pressing Red Book-compliant CDs in the US, I'll get one from there.

¶ air music 1

Remember WIRED Magazine; that MONDO 2000 for the masses? Well, they've now got an issue on the future of music, in which they got various musicians to talk about how they work with technology. Malcolm McLaren comes across as pretentious, Jean-Benoit Dunckel (of Air fame) seems obsessed with bootywhang, while Björk sounds, well, Björkish.

¶ air björk culture futurism malcolm mclaren music wired 2