Article link April 15, 2004
POP REVIEW | AIR
Making a Musical World That's All of a Piece
By KELEFA SANNEH
The New York Times
Remember when CD's seemed like the future? They were indestructible (except when they weren't), they never skipped (except when they did), and they were cheaper to manufacture than vinyl records (although not of course cheaper to buy). They also made some listeners nostalgic for vinyl records: in the CD age albums got longer, less consistent, more shapeless.
Now, with the rise of MP3's and other digital formats, it may be time for a new nostalgia: CD nostalgia. In the CD age there were no interruptions: you didn't have to get up to flip the record, and you didn't get to pick and choose which songs you would add to your iPod. You swallowed a CD whole, like a pill, then waited for it to take effect.
And so if you're wondering how two self-effacing Frenchmen who call themselves Air managed to fill up the vast Hammerstein Ballroom on Tuesday night â?? without the benefit of a mainstream hit or a huge discography, without any public image to speak of â?? the answer is that they made a CD that could be swallowed whole. That CD is "Moon Safari," their intoxicating 1998 debut, full of wistful chord progressions and undulating textures.
"Moon Safari" was an album that bar managers and dinner-party hosts and shop owners could put on and forget about: it was smooth and seductive all the way through. If you think this sounds like the description of mere background music, then you're wrong about the "mere" but right about the rest. During Tuesday night's seductive concert, the duo found ways to make their background music fill the ballroom, turning simple songs into immersive experiences.
Air's second studio album, "10,000 Hz Legend," was more jagged and adventurous than "Moon Safari," but its new album, "Talkie Walkie" (Astralwerks/EMI), is more swallowable: the singing (by the two musicians themselves) is sometimes stilted, but the arrangements are pristine; onstage the duo (aided by two more musicians) found ways to reproduce the warmth and precision of the CD. For "Alpha Beta Gaga," based on a leisurely 10/4 beat, Jean-Benoît Dunckel played key-tar (a strap-on synthesizer) and Nicolas Godin whistled the tune while a bed of glimmering electronic sound washed over them.
Lighted from behind, the musicians were reduced to silhouettes, as featureless as the purposely generic love songs they sing. Before "Run," Mr. Dunckel announced, "Of course it's about a girl, it's always about the same girl." Then he sang, "Stay with me, I feel sad when you run, run, run, run," and a sampler kept repeating this last word: it sounded like a skipping CD.