Category: Air

From the album Moon Safari and featuring a vocal from Beth Hirsch, perfectly complementing the composition by Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Duncke.

mp3 : Air – All I Need

A #29 hit in the UK charts in late 1998. Utterly sublime.

JC

For some reason or other, but what I can’t quite explain. I’m in the mood and groove for a bit of electronica pop just now.  I hadn’t heard this is in ages when it popped up on random shuffle the other day and it damn near hypnotised me beyond my stop on the train journey.

mp3 : Air – Kelly Watch The Stars (edit)

It was the second single to be lifted from the hit album Moon Safari and it peaked at #18 in the UK charts in 1998 although I thought it had performed better than that and indeed that it was more recent than 17 years ago.

I like how on the sleeve, if you peer closely, you will see the words ‘French Band’ next to Air.  I do recall hearing it the first time on radio and thinking that it was a Chemical Brothers record.

Here’s yer other tracks on the CD single of which just the Beck remix of an earlier hit is really worth your time:-

mp3 : Air – Sexy Boy (Beck ‘sex kino’ mix)
mp3 : Air – Kelly Watch The Stars (album version)
mp3 : Air – Remember (D Whittaker version)

Enjoy

From wiki:-

Air is a music duo from Versailles, France, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel.

Air’s sound is often referred to as electronica; their form of electronic music was influenced by the synthesizer sounds of the 1970s such as Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Francis Lai. Other influences include psychedelic and progressive rock pioneers Pink Floyd; film composer Ennio Morricone; krautrockers Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk; early pioneers of the eurodance electronica subgenre Space; Jean-Jacques Perrey and Claude Perraudin (although there are some echoes of dance music styles in the production); French crooner Serge Gainsbourg (Histoire de Melody Nelson, for example); and soft rock duo The Carpenters (Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, originally by progressive rock band Klaatu for example).

The thing is, if I was to read all of that before hearing any of the music I’d be expecting something bloody awful and unlistenable to the point of being up its own arse. And yet, this 1998 single is pretty irresistible:-

mp3 : Air – Sexy Boy (radio edit)

It was #13 hit here in the UK which remains the highest-placing they’ve managed to achieve. There were three remixes made available:-

mp3 : Air – Sexy Boy (Sex Kino Mix)
mp3 : Air – Sexy Boy (Cassius Radio Mix)
mp3 : Air – Sexy Boy (Etienne de Crecy et Les Flower Pistols Remix)

The first of these is by Beck Hansen, and as you’d expect, is quite idiosyncratic. The others are by well-known French DJs/performers.

There’s one more track available on the single:-

mp3 : Air (avec Francoise Hardy) – Jeanne

That’s two in a row for Ms Hardy following on from yesterday’s appearance with Blur. This song is one that she has been given a writing credit for alongside messrs Godin and Dunckel. It’s quite tasty….