Air
10,000 Hz Legend
On Sale Now
For $12.48

Listening to Air’s 1998 debut Moon Safari or their latest 10,000 Hz Legend, it would be easy to see them providing the soundtrack for a bizarre science fiction film. Yet there they were last year turning up on the soundtrack of an altogether different project, Sofia Coppola’s brilliant meditation on femininity and grief, The Virgin Suicides. The French electronic duo’s lighter than air, modern compositions somehow complemented the film’s sense of sinister nostalgia and seventies setting.

Their latest record finds Jean Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin once again departing earth for faraway planets. The opening "Electronic Performers" could be the duo’s anthem: "We are the synchronizers / send messages through time code/ midi clock rings in my mind / machines gave me some freedom/ synthesizers gave me some wings / they drop me through 12-bit samplers… We are electronic performers / We are electronics." The Kraftwerk-like ticky-tack beats and blips, a slowed-down vocal and a sweeping keyboard main theme establish Air’s mission early.

"How Does It Feel" is literally an alien love song with an ET spouting hilariously bad pick-up lines in a whispering Stephen Hawking-like computerized voice: "I am spacing out with you / you are the most beautiful entity that I’ve ever dreamed of… I wish you could exist to live on my planet." The sentiments come bathed in an angelic chorus like something from a 10CC record. It all sets up a terrible punch line voiced by the object of the alien’s affections. Responding to the question "so how does this make you feel," she responds: "Well, I really think you should quit smoking."

Elsewhere Air gets some help from Beck on "The Vagabond," a verging on funky number that begins with a bluesy harmonica and acoustic guitar bit before bringing in the blips and bleats. Beck also contributes a spoken-word part on the up-tempo, not quite catchy "Don’t Be Light," which is also notable for a whistling solo. Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, The Grays) provides melodic backing vocals on several tracks including "People In the City," which has another robotic Speak-and-Spell-like vocoder lead vocal.

"Radian" is a spooky seven-minutes-plus instrumental that comes off like an electronic version of something from Peter Gabriel’s Passion. Harp transitions to flute and strings and then to a piano driven section. But it’s ultimately more admirable than truly enjoyable.

More interesting is "Sex Born Poison," which has a pretty acoustic guitar beginning before getting really weird. Loud, bleating, distorted synths haunt the final verse and the song builds majestically to its conclusion.

Listening to "Wonder Milky Bitch" you wonder if Dunckel and Godin have maybe seen a few too many David Lynch flicks. As the title would indicate, the lyrics are bizarre: "You know how to do it / wonder milky bitch / you don’t wear cosmetic/ you don’t like arithmetic." But somehow the way the words are enunciated allows the song to take on a strange beauty of its own by the end.

The record concludes with "Caramel Prisoner," a spacey, mood wash instrumental with a bit of acoustic guitar, ooh-aah vocals and a few more blips and bleats.

Not as accessible as The Virgin Suicides, 10,000 Hz Legend is still a remarkable accomplishment for the French duo. And Air’s world is an endlessly fascinating place to visit. Still, after the record finished I was relieved to take off the headphones and realize I was back on planet Earth.

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