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Air
Moon Safari
label:
source / astralwerks
released: 01.27.98
our score: 5.0 out of 5.0
buy it: here
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So, have you
heard Air yet?
If the answer
is no, then it sucks to be you.
You are probably
wondering who these guys are, especially since they are popping
up on best of '98 lists everywhere. Spin voted them as the fifth
best album of the year. I am putting them in my list as well.
But how can a band you have never heard of, or if you have - you
probably have heard little, be praised so highly?
The media
doesn't think it will sell. Who would want to turn on the radio
to hear what sounds like elevator music gone electronic anyways?
I don't. But these two Frenchmen pulled it off. And they did a
damn good job while they were at it.
Air has gone
forward while the rest of the musical world has stood still. The
strange part is that they have done so by going backwards at the
same time. Their updated combination of lounge, muzak, and electronica
is a sound like we have never heard. Unlike the typical electronic
music of today, this is not set to be a dancefloor favorite. Although
it is all smoother and more down tempo, it is not ambient either.
Theirs is a sound all their own.
Highlights
include their first single - "Sexy Boy" but there is
much more. "Kelly Watch the Stars" mixes 80's Europop
with 60's French style. "Ce Matin La" and "La Femme
D' Argent" are both electronic lounge at its finest. The
artistic talents of Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel are
unsurpassed in this field - it is no wonder they have a following
by American greats Beck and Mike D. (There is a remix of "Sexy
Boy" done by Beck here.)
If you ever
imagined sitting in a waiting room in the not-so-distant future,
waiting for a flight somewhere - but nowhere in particular - this
is the theme music for that feeling. You don't care where you
are. You don't care when you are. You don't care where you are
going. What is important is the where this music takes you - and
it takes me to places I have never been before; like no place
in my wildest dreams.
27-Jan-1998
10:00 PM
If you
liked Moon Safari...
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