Kthaahthikha

I've been listening back through Air's back catalogue quite a bit lately, and it's only served to reaffirm my high opinion of them.

I am quite the fan of Air. Their tongue-in-cheek take on the cliche' of the ice-cold European artiste is a delight, especially as we have only their own assurances that it isn't true. Their music, at least their post-Safari stuff, is the perfect blend of repetition, mtion and careful, gentle pacing, giving tracks where very little is going-on a rapid, exhilirating feeling, and working perfectly when a song like The Word Hurricane decides it's time to turn-on the sexy. And sexy it is indeed.

That said, I've been interested in the critical response to most of the material post-Moon Safari. Every review seeming to run to the tune of 'It's quite good, but no Moon Safari', this began to puzzle me somewhat. I think Air have managed to tighten, sharpen their music, giving it more focus than the Wordsworthian rambles that filled most of Moon Safari and were swarming under the skin of Premiers Symptomes like a host of South Paraguayan swarming-ants. It seems that most of the reviewers who came to Air came through their early stuff, and immediately formed a mental mold into which Air fit rather neatly - something which it became apparent was not meant to last when Virgin Suicides came out, and was well-and-truly refuted by 10,000 hz legend.

My favourite album would probably have to be Talkie Walkie. It has more going-on than Moon Safari, but doesn't fall into the occasional trap that Legend sprung of placing quality tracks of one very sqpecific kind in amongst many other quality tracks of a very different form - much like putting diamonds in ice-cream (a surprisingly-accurate simile, I feel), the combination didn't really work. This was the real flaw of Legend, in that it sacrificed the group's sense of pacing and over-all structure for a parade of singles - an understandable tactic but one they didn't quite manage to pull-off.

Talkie Walkie, however, is sharp, clear, elegant, simple and dark. It is probably closest to Suicides in tone, even if it has very little in common thematically. The sharpness manages to cut through the soft, vague slickness that was such a trademark of Moon Safari (which I really do like, but I'm afraid everyone needs a point of comparison), revelling in catchy tunes and swaying, deeply-layered excercises in pop that play like the fairytale electric Sigur Ros at their more shadowy moments.

I think the albumdoes begin to suffer towards the end, however. The tracks retain a certain quality, but after the lush density of Alone in Kyoto (which appeared in Sophia Coppola's marvelous Lost in Translation - I always love it when kids show their parents how it's done) the tracks seem to merge into one long fade-out. Obviously, this plays great if one is lounging about at twelve am, reading something vaguely-intellectual and contemplating wine, but are sometimes harder to get into at more active hours of the day. I'd really love to hear Air's Late Night Tales compilation.

I realise the review is hopelessly out-of-date, but meh.

Also, they have made an Australian Western. It is set in Australia in the Bushranger era, in the desert. it has Guy Pierce in it and was written by Nick Cave. This can only be a good thing.

It is called The Proposition.

And I have made bad music. Go download it from my website. I listened to yours, Bean.

I may review Look Both Ways some time. It's wondrous.

AIR... is good. Yeah. But I have never been able to find any of their music here in Jkt or in India. A friend of mine had an album burned from a friend of a friend who dwnlddd it off a ... friend... long long way. We used to lissn it over n over and it formed part of a compilation we liked to call 'Clear Voices'... self explanatory i hope. :)

Oooh!! Air rules, they use analog keyboards - you can't get cooler than that! Talkie Walkie is such a great album!