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AIR - Pocket Symphony

AIR - Pocket Symphony
Source
CD // £14.99
ELECTRONIC
Released: Mar 2007
Catalogue Number: CDV 3032

Air never meant to make you hate them, really they didn't - and when you think about it, we can hardly blame them for the impact they had. Before Air people were still chilling out, they were still inviting their trendy Guardian reading friends around to their apartments to sit on leather sofas as smooth beats echoed around the magnolia walls, it's just that Air put a label on it, and became something of the benchmark in the genre. It was post-Air that we had to suffer Zero 7 and all the horrors of the word 'chill', and as all this went on Air themselves got weirder and weirder. The Virgin Suicides soundtrack? Talkie Walkie? And only a few months ago we were treated to a frankly awesome compilation of some of the band's favourite tracks in the LateNightTales series, so I must say the announcement of a new record made me more than a little interested. On top of all this, the rumour was that Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel had learnt how to play Japanese instruments the Koto and the Shamisen, and these were to be included on the album... not something you'd usually associate with a mere bit of coffee-table fluff is it? Well I can certainly reveal to you that these elements are indeed featured here, and more than this - they work marvellously. On the wonderful 'One Hell of a Party' (which features the omnipresent Jarvis Cocker on vocals) these Japanese elements are brought to the fore, and it neither sounds cheesy or overdone, rather adding to Air's tape-recorded easy-listening atmosphere. Air are, in the end, successors to the lounge-core sound of Serge Gainsbourg and his contemporaries, they never really slotted well into the whole 'post club chill out' thing, especially when they explored their more prog-rock influenced ideas, and while there are plenty of moments on 'Pocket Symphony' which could mirror the success of 'Sexy Boy' or 'Kelly Watch the Stars' ('Napalm Love' for instance...) this album proves rather that the band are capable of so much more than they are given credit for. With an exemplary production skill (how do they make their music sound so 'soft'?) and that lilting songwriting touch that makes them so obviously Air, 'Pocket Symphony' is a pop album with a difference - it's actually worth listening to.

• Tracks on AIR - Pocket Symphony:
• AIR : 01
• AIR : 02
• AIR : 03

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