album review: air. le voyage dans le lune. 6 february 2012. astralwerks
(buy here)

There is no album as close to my heart as Air‘s 1998 album Moon Safari. It’s been my favourite album for as long as I can remember. First introduced to it by a roommate at University, I have found it to be the perfect album for summer, winter; morning, evening; relaxing, partying; Anytime I put it on I am transported away and it cheers me up.

Air are now back with their first album in three years. It isn’t quite as simple as that though. It’s a film soundtrack. That’s not new for them though. They scored Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides back in 2000. A truly wonderful job they did too. It isn’t quite as simple as that either though. No, this is a soundtrack to a classic silent movie from 1902. I didn’t even know they had films in 1902. What would you expect though? This is the band that decided to record an album with lyrics read from an Italian book about a horse.

Don’t go into this thinking of it as just gimmicky though (the same goes for the aforementioned City Reading (Tre Storie Western) by the way). This is a truly beautiful album. If the role of a soundtrack is not just to score the onscreen performance, but also promote the film, then this album does it perfectly. It has been commissioned to accompany a restored version of the original film and I will be searching high and low to find a cinema to watch this in.

Highlights include the tracks that Air pull in more beautiful people with beautiful voices in the shape of Beach House’s Victoria Legrand on ‘Seven Stars’ and previous collaborators Au Revoir Simone on ‘Who Am I Now?’. Beautiful. Elsewhere, ‘Parade’ is classic Air with a modern pace and ‘Sonic Armada’ couldn’t sound more like you’d expect Air to sound today if you’ve followed them from Moon Safari to Love 2 with all in between.

This is more than a soundtrack. This is more than an experiment. This is an Air album for 2012 and an early contender for the End of Year lists.

8.5

This review originally appeared on The 405.

you may or may not know that moon safari by air is my favourite album of all time. it is the perfect album for absolutely anytime of the year. it’s an obvious choice for a summer’s day with it’s dreamy magical pop, but also try listening to it on a cold winter’s night. i remember having it on my ipod as i crossed the millennium bridge in a light rain. wow. i know this probably sounds ridiculously contrived, but it just made me feel like everything was good in the world.

anyway, the point of this post is two-fold. firstly to bring your attention to the short score the duo recently put together for some sort of campaign for cartier about love. secondly, to let you know that the new air album is out on 7 february next year. never a band to stick to the norm, this time they’re releasing an album inspired by a silent movie. brilliant. it’s going to be called le voyage dans la lune, which i think means something about travelling to the moon. i haven’t used google translate there, so it is no more than a guess though.

this was my christmas. 9am. josh got up. later than expected. open stocking. 10am. kedgeree. good. 10.30am. open presents. i’m getting a bike so i had a book and some lights. josh got a table football table. ben 10 ds game. lego. lots of bits basically. 11.30am. to my brother’s with the family. guinness on arrival. 12.30am open presents. i got a massive daft punk print. josh got an ant world and chemistry set. i see danger and mess ahead. 1.30pm. sister in law’s family arrive. rum is given to me. good. more guinness. 4pm. dinner. very good. brother and his wife’s first effort. impressive. red wine. 5pm. christmas pudding. custard. excellent. 6pm. rapidough. lager. 7pm. shout out loud. lager. 8pm. london underground game. lager. 9pm. four player mario kart on the wii. i won. lager. 10pm. christmas cake. black bomber & biscuits. lager. 11pm. sports resort on the wii. i won. midnight. fifa on the wii. i won.

what this basically means is that i don’t know what to post about. how about a spotify playlist to relax on a boxing day to? perfect.

boxing day playlist (spotify)

if you’d like to know who’s included, probably best to check the tags at the bottom as i can’t be arsed to write out the full playlist here