After spending the summer on the road to European festivals with their lovely nostalgia tour, the French duo Air travels through American arenas to present here the retrospective concert of their most famous album, Moon Safaripublished more than a quarter of a century ago. Before his concert at Place Bell on October 13 with old friend Nicolas Godin, Jean-Benoît Dunckel looks back on the legacy of Moon Safarion the inspiration and piano music that he defends on an album of “neoclassical” compositions Paranormal Musicality, released earlier this year by Warner Classics.
Jean-Benoît Dunckel noticed this on the road last summer: “There are really a lot of young people who attend our concerts. We’re seeing an intergenerational transmission of our music, and it’s really interesting to see that because we have the feeling that they see Air in another way. Some of these young people were not born when it appeared Moon Safari in 1998; for them, it’s a legendary album. And it’s as if they were saying to themselves that they were lucky to see us in concert because afterwards, we might disappear too. »
Sold more than 2 million copies, Moon Safarithe first album by Dunkel and Godin, presented a completely different face of this wave that we called French Touch. To the house disco of Daft Punk, Cassius, Motorbass, Étienne de Crécy and Bob Sinclar, Air responded with dreamy grooves distilling a retro vision of the music of the future in the spirit of Pierre Henry (Mass for a present timewith Michel Colombier, 1967) or the sparkling Jean-Jacques Perrey (The In Sound From Way Out!1966, with Gershon Kingsley), soul-pop argument as a bonus — “an album between the future and the past, inevitably with little clichés of music from the 1970s and 1980s,” describes Dunckel. A bit like a Jules Verne novel, that is to say a bit off the mark, which represents neither the future nor the past. »
The unforgettable groove of The silver woman in the opening, its diaphanous synths, its bass line which brings back to earth the melodies already from another era. The deliciously psychedelic rock grooves of Sexy Boy and of Kelly Watch the Starsthe lightness of Beth Hirsch’s voice on All I Needan authentic pop ballad which, like the rest of the album, has not aged a bit, more than a quarter of a century after its release. The beloved album will be played in its entirety at Place Bell by the duo, simply accompanied by a drummer, the musicians occupying a scenography intended to make us experience the lunar safari again.
“It is perhaps still too early to say whether this is a legendary album,” tempers Dunckel. History will tell, but it is true that this is an album that never finishes saying what it has to say. And that’s great because there are a lot of albums that came out 25 years ago that no one listens to anymore. If this one still works, it’s perhaps because it has a soul, because it expresses a particular emotion. It is, I believe, a medicinal album. There is something at once childish, restorative, reassuring and comfortable which pleases a lot, which allows people to fantasize, to dream. It’s a caress, what many people look for in music. A comfortable place you can curl up in. »
After playing Moon Safari (“with orchestrations faithful to the original recordings,” recalls Dunckel), Air revisits on stage some selected pieces from its discography, including Highschool Lovertaken from the original film soundtrack The Virgin Suicides (1999) by Sofia Coppola that the duo composed just after Moon Safari.
It is true that this is an album that never finishes saying what it has to say
“We composed this soundtrack a bit in reaction to Moon Safarirecognizes Jean-Benoît Dunckel, because people said at the time that we were making “lounge music”, and we didn’t really like that. This is why with The Virgin Suicidewe composed something very dark, very black, but at the same time with a light behind it, with a different production, less electronic, the drums more rock. Afterwards, 10,000 Hz Legend (2001) was a more experimental album, not made to be played on the radio, more research. And Walkie Talkie (2004) was more inspired by the Asian design sense”, with a song like Alone in Kyotowhich we will then hear in another feature film by Coppola, the unforgettable Lost in Translation (2003).
After releasing six studio albums in around fifteen years, the duo suspended their activities, without however announcing their separation. “At the end, after releasing so much material, we had the impression, somewhere, that people didn’t care a bit, so we were no longer motivated to continue,” admits Dunckel. In any case, taking a break like that, going our separate ways to discover music composed for the cinema and many other things, has enriched us. If we started working together again, we would have a lot more experience. We’ll see… “
For his part, Nicolas Godin launched two solo albums (Concrete and Glassthe most recent, was published in 2020). Jean-Benoît has a slightly more extensive track record: his first solo album was released in 2006 under the name Darkelwhile Air was still in the portrait. In recent months, he has launched two distinct projects: Möbius Morphosisa first work (acoustic and electronic) for ballet, published last summer, then the collection of improvisation for piano Paranormal Musicality.
“I have been playing the piano for 50 years,” explains the musician. I told myself that for these 50 years, I had to do something; This album is truly music in its raw state, as it comes to me when I feel inspired. I wanted to capture these moments of piano interpretation which are in fact the opposite of musical production done on the computer, music written, rewritten, reworked. An album in opposition to what I’m used to doing. »