I am not sure exactely what it is that I like so much about Air.
I absolutely loved their first stuff – new and fresh sounds from a country that we are not normally overwhelmed by musically – not me anyway.
But this was great somehow.
Simple and with very precise orientation towards their own sound – their own aestetic.
Now I am listening to an old track also. Its called Modular Mix and appears on the album “Premiers Symptomes”.
I am not sure, but it seems to originally be from 95 – released on SOlid Source.
Anyway, I am not getting much wiser from the french cover notes.
My point is that its a track that very much encapsulates their sound.
Handplayed bass and the moody synthesizer.The naivistic guitar playing the same nots for a long time. Two cinematic string clusters breaks the track off and a reverse sound brings us back into normal Air land with wobly synthesizer lines and small naivistic pentatonic melodies.
A little bit funky and with stabby horn and a dry bottom end that tends to also be a bit dubby.
The next track on this album starts out in exactely the same mood. Casanova 70 its called.
The classic Air bass lines and pentatonic melodies and chord shifts are there and something else ofcourse which is their little secret magic place from where they find out what goes and what goes not. No need to talk so much more about this.
I love this track also.
In the next track they are a bit more dry in the beginning.Same bass line and some funky keys is around in several forms.
Some shaker action is filtered to give a little movement and they recorded some weird ambience stuff to warm it up. Nice chill out downbeatatmosphere in this track also. The horns as we know them are still here. “Les Professionels” – come to think of it I heard this track in different disguises over the years. But never like this. It ends with the guitar line that I definitely have heard on many Air tracks.
Ganga
Rich, Smooth Down beat flavas from Copenhagen, Denmark