MOG

Air - Pocket Symphony

It starts out gorgeous from the beginning. 'space maker' is a beautiful track with the head of moon safar and the polish of talkie walkie. then wave your tearful goodbyes because the rest is a big departure for them. not the brain melting, weirdly thrilling freakout that was 10,000 hz legend, they're very much in control. But Air have made an album that demands to be warmed up to with a cozy spot and a warm drink, yet feels almost self-consciously sparse. the initial pre-release blurb about using asian instruments was a red herring. there's no 'drawing restraint 9' for them, just a different kind of sound for the usual air tricks. if it isn't dunkel's vocals (which is a new development i'm not a big fan of), then they practically sit atop the song, as in jarvis cocker's take on "one hell of a party." getting back to dunckel's vocal involvement: i dont know how charming it is for non-french audiences to hear a thorughly french waifish guy try to sing in english, but to a frenchman like myself, it sounds like he's stumbling through a cold while in a mild chokehold. also he just can't sing on top of it. add to that the repetitions of the lyrics like on 'napalm love' and 'photograph' and we're unfortunately finding the skip button pretty quickly on what's otherwise a decent song. aside from that though, getting through it's icy-hard exterior gives a perspective of the music as being alternately hard edged in style but relaxed in sound. it's comforting while remaining cold to the touch (god, how french is that?) the arrangements are sparse, but the piano is soft. mixes like this create alterna-lounge oddities like 'lost message' and 'mayfair song'. songs like 'left bank' and 'mer du japon keep it from dozing off in a satisfied coma by getting out of it's ultra-cool haze a bit and showing some life, and for what anyone would call pretty mellow songs, it's a pretty big shift. so change the album descriptor a bit: it's album dozing off inside of it's icy hard exterior, but warming itself inside. the colors and setting for the album art is really appropriate: cold colors with tasteful elements of black, ghosts of people listening o a small but expensive looking stereo that doubtlessly has a good warm sound inside of a cold place. think the same visual language of tv show 'six feet under', but with none of the warmth of its characters to soften it. this kind of attitude isn't going to warm many hearts to really loving this record, but it's doing a damn good job of not doing that.

excuse the three day abscence, my nights have gotten unexpectedly busy...