Air remembers its first album

Twenty-six years after its release, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel of Air reinterpret their first album, “Moon Safari”, on stage. The opportunity to talk to them about this weightless record and the springs of this unexpected tour.

At the Nuits de Fourvière, where they stopped on Tuesday June 18, the two musicians of Air enchanted the Lyonnais by playing, in order, the ten pieces of Moon Safari, their first album with dreamy melancholy released in 1998. Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin gave us an interview a few hours before going on stage, in which they remembered their state of mind during the making of this record beloved by the public, which was an instant success. The opportunity also to find out more about this tour and the future of Air.

Franceinfo Culture: What made you want to go back on stage to replay your first album?
Nicolas Godin : We got into the habit of doing fairly regular tours and with Covid everything stopped. Then we each developed our own projects and people started asking us when we were going back on tour. We were looking for an idea and I think it was the right time for us to play Moon Safari. Life is made of cycles, this was the right timing after 25 years.

Looking back, what do you think of this album?
Jean-Benoît Dunckel : It’s strange because it takes us with it, it’s an album that never finishes saying what it has to say, which is a bit the definition of classic. It has a very particular atmosphere, a little childish, a little melancholic, but also reassuring, even medicinal for the listeners. And as he is really cherished by the public, it was the opportunity to really play him from A to Z. We just follow this adventure that we created and which goes beyond us in some way.
Nicholas : He has a form of fresh innocence which is incredible because as the English say, “you can be a newcomer only once in your life“, you can only be a newcomer once in your life. That’s the charm of the first time, of the first album. Everything was new to us then. Before Moon Safari, we were students and we knew nothing about music. We didn’t know anything about record companies, we didn’t know that there were tour managers, roadies, we didn’t even know that they had sound checks before the concerts. It was crazy! Moon Safari, It was a bit violent because we discovered everything at once and in a very strong way, because it was a success.

Listening to this album again years later, we are struck by this airy, regressive, almost consolatory roundness. However, the world is much worse off than it was then. Why then did you have this desire to do something so reassuring?
Jean-Benoît : Because it was to treat ourselves. I think that an artistic work is a projection which can also be necessary for the person who makes it. It is something psychological, a sound vibration which is useful for us to live and through which we convey many things. I think of Françoise Hardy, who unfortunately has just passed away. Etienne Daho said that his texts were very psychological. It’s true that the texts are a bit like psychoanalysis, we put a lot of ourselves into them and we try to explain life and its emotions. We try to explain our emotions with our sounds.

I think at that time we must have been a little stressed because we were entering working life. So we created something reassuring and childish, like a cocoon in which we could feel good.

Jean-Benoît Dunckel

at Franceinfo Culture

This record was also a tribute to your childhood…
Nicholas : With this album we said goodbye to our childhood, which was a wonderful world. Wonderful and terrible, for all children. We understood, we had a feeling, that everything we had been sold, especially the year 2000, was going to go by the wayside. It was the late 90s and nothing we imagined was going to happen. Moon Safari It’s a bit of a nostalgic vision of this dream we had around 7-8 years old.

Are you playing the album again exactly the same way as when you first toured it?
Nicholas : No not at all. This is the first time we’ve played these songs the same way as on the album. Because during the first tour, we played them in different versions. At the time, we wanted something new every week. And as I remember the first tour was quite chaotic. Every minute was a discovery.

Today, we have such a distance, such a step back from the work, that we can play it as it is. Moon Safari no longer belongs to us. It belongs to the zeitgeist [à l’air du temps].

Nicolas Godin

at Franceinfo Culture

Do you still use the same instruments as then, especially all those wonderful Moogs and other Korgs that you already collected?
Nicholas : Yes. But not because we are particularly attached to the past. The fact is that these instruments are a thing of the past but above all they are great. We’ve always loved the warmth of analog sound, but very quickly we mixed everything: we also used computers, samplers, we weren’t stuck. When digital technology appeared, all these instruments became obsolete. What makes us unique is that we never thought that they were obsolete.

What’s it like playing the same album in the same order every night?
Nicholas : It’s good ! It’s good because on our albums there is a meaning, there is an order, a balance and a weighting… Moon Safari, as it came out, it is the perfect unfolding. So when we play it, everything goes well. The pieces were designed to flow together like this. An album, like a play or a novel, has a beginning, a middle and an end. Besides, normally, the order of albums is completely different from the order of concerts. In general, you put your best songs at the beginning of the album and in concerts, conversely, you reserve your best songs for the end. So, on this tour we play the best at the beginning and it’s fun, it’s fresh. And then we play live, so it’s not the same every night. Analog synths are still full of knobs to turn [il fait le geste]. The settings are all interdependent so some evenings are better than others.

You also play a little best-of, in addition. How do you choose the titles for this second part of the concert?
Jean-Benoît : They stand out on their own, because they are either the best-known pieces, or strong titles, which well represent the era in which they were composed. It’s about emotional strength.

Now that you are reunited on stage, what future can we hope for Air?
Nicholas : For the moment, we live in the present moment…
Jean-Benoît : The future is uncertain.
Nicholas : We’ve been playing together for forty years. And even beyond Air, I don’t know if I want to make an album. I don’t even know if it’s okay to make records or do things all the time. I am in total questioning.
Jean-Benoît : I take life as it comes. If I am offered interesting projects, I will do them. But, at this stage, I want to concentrate on the essential and do strong and universal things, which will stay.
Nicholas : With age, we become philosophers (smile).

Air continues its international Moon Safari tour, it passes in France on Monday June 24 in Paris at the Days Off festival at the Philharmonie, on July 13 in Montpellier at the Radio France Amphi d’O festival and on August 17 in Saint-Malo at the Route du Rock.