AIR French Band* – Moon Safari

This is an overrated album. 'All I Need' is the strong track here. Futuristic, melancholic and an innovative pop song. Beautiful. The introducer is fantastic too, with vintage 70s echoes. And 'Kelly Watch the Stars' has become a classic anyway.
The other tracks are regular or weak. You need understand. Into the 1997, the french electronic music was only Daft Punk or Laurent Garnier. Dancefloor acts. So the critics thanked the heaven when AIR came up with the Moon Safari. They'd need to thicken the soup as producers.

Air seems to wonderfully avoid the dated sound that many pop influenced electronica records get as they crack the decade and beyond. It would seem this album is timeless. With the moulding of lounge and downtempo with a touch of disco infused pop, this record never ceases to amaze me due to how easy it is to listen to and how seemingly simple it is, and yet I almost always find something else in the music that transfixes me, whether it's a bass pad or strings that I never seemed to notice before. The different portions of the music just complement each other so perfectly. It really goes to prove the production skill involved in this record. Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin and his long time friend and Patrick Woodcock (Mellow) have created a thing of real pop beauty. I know i'll be listening to this and other Air (Premiers Symptômes) for a long time to come. I can look forward to seeing how well the newer production ages, but if the early stuff is anything to go by.. well.. It speaks for itself.

Quite groundbreaking when it first came out, <i>Moon Safari</i> has since been eclipsed by other releases by different artists. But its quality is still evident after repeated listens. True, the music itself isn't terribly complex, but as an example of nouveau easy listening/lounge downtempo, it's a landmark album.

This album mostly sounds like elevator and mood music, but the thing is, I like it. Pop this in your stereo and tune out to an indulging music euphoria. The only song I didn't enjoy was "Sexy Boy", and the only element of it that kept me listening was the odd modified voice thing you hear throughout the track (just listen to the track, you'll understand what I mean).

Truly an amazing sophmore release from this french duo. I bought it for Kelley Watch the Stars, but loved it for every other track. The only song that gets on my nerve is Sexy Boy.

The album has a floaty selection of downtempo beats that can follow you from laying on the beach to going to sleep to breaking up with your mate. Truly a versatile album which is a permanent selection in the soundtrack to my life.

An interesting note: The beats in the video version of Kelley are more accoustic than the album version.