Air - Moon Safari
Finally, a soundtrack to accompany my most favorite dreams. Like the one where I race down a grassy mountain slope, spread my arms and fly across to the other side of the valley (and other favorites).
La Femme D'Argent, the opening track, tells it the way it's going to be. Heavy on the acoustics with just the right amount of lush minimoogs and other analog synthesizer flavours. This is one of those albums that uses vocals in a way that makes you think you're listening to an instrumental album. Sounds of the words enhancing the flow rather than the music becoming merely an after thought.
All I Need and You Make It Easy are about as close as you'll get to a regular songs, with the really distinctive vocals of Beth Hirsch supplying super pleasant lyrics to more dream soundtracks. The interplay between Fender Rhodes and Moog on All I Need is just great, in fact the feel of the whole album draws from some of the great mood music of the seventies, remaining utterly faithful to the genre rather than focusing on the novelty side of the whole bachelor pad genre.
A product of France, AIR is Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel and between them are making quite a name for themselves as they mix classic electronic, electroacoustic and acoustic instruments together to produce their remarkably rich sound. There's a lot to be said for staying well away from the sterile environment of pure digital sound sources especially when producing music that requires the use of acoustic guitars and percussion instruments.
A Minimoog walks where a Casio fears to tread in this music that's helping to take the genre to new and refreshing heights.
Rating: 879,055 (out of a possible 1,000,000)
