Air
Pocket Symphony

Many times, to enjoy life and what surrounds us, we need the right melody! A symphony to carry with us and bring out every time we see a sunrise or a magical sunset, savor life in the moment your girlfriend is about to kiss you under a starry sky... well... to fully capture these little joys of life, we often need a portable symphony... to insert into our mp3 player and unleash whenever we want to fully experience a particular environment or moment...  

The specialty of AIR is precisely this! Creating increasingly refined, more seductive, and hypnotic melodies to take anywhere... on the train, in the car, while running by the sea, thanks to these amazing melodies the listener can truly immerse themselves in the surrounding nature, just listen to a song like "Once Upon a Time" and even a simple leaf fluttering on your home balcony seems like poetry! These French guys are really good at creating instrumental electronic melodies with great emotional impact. After the stunning pop debut of "Moon Safari" (appreciated by the ENTIRE WORLD), Air has truly matured artistically! After the Pink Floyd-inspired psychedelic experiment of "10000 Hz Legend" (which divided critics and the public) and the return to melodic origins with "Talkie Walkie", the slick AIR crafts these pocket symphonies and truly shows great growth in both melodic and technical fields. 

"Pocket Symphony" is a small POCKET MASTERPIECE! Exactly! The intent to package these 12 emotional tracks, very emotional (a tremendous impact on the listener's soul) was perfectly achieved. But unfortunately, USELESS comparisons with the debut album "Moon Safari" by the international critique have unjustly penalized this new record, which in my opinion is clearly superior! Sure... the beauty and freshness of songs like "All I Need" and "Remember" from their flagship are a distant memory, here they experiment with more melancholic melodies, sometimes dark and truly sad that delve into the listener's heart. Two completely different exercises, I think it's unfair to make comparisons with the previous albums.

The tracks are all worthy! The opening is entrusted to "Space Maker" very much in the style of Pink Floyd! Perhaps a bit too much here! My father, a die-hard Floyd fan, enters the room and tells me "who are these copycats?" Well... I wouldn't say copycats! Let's say that Air is the LIGHTHEARTED POP version of Pink Floyd, but even here the comparisons seem excessive, though some tracks do sound very similar, albeit with different technicalities (much more "intentionally" minimal, the air naturally). However, the tracks do not lack originality, with wonderful and relaxing melodies like the beautiful "Left Bank" with its almost whispered vocal part, guitars and strings in the background provide a backdrop to a chorus in the style of Madonna's "frozen", very sensual. There is also room for playful carefree pop songs like "Napalm Love" which is hypnotic and almost danceable, and the fun and well-orchestrated "Mer Du Japon" which brings back synthesizers and electronic sounds with soul! As they showed us with the old and glorious "Sexy Boys", the sampler and instruments come to life, live with their own soul, Air are not electronic DJs, they are musicians with a capital "M"!

And between one "little song" and another, they also manage to compose two masterpieces like "Photograph" and "ReadHead Girl" that would evoke emotions even in a jar of pickles! The first is a masterpiece of sound poetry, a wandering chorus... for ancestral travel, infinite horizons to explore with one's soul... a song to love! Brilliant minimalism, strings, barely whispered flutes, almost imperceptible choirs, a voice that lulls you like a father telling a fairy tale to his own child. The second is the absolute masterpiece of the album! Try listening to "ReadHead" after saying goodbye to your beloved... or after bidding farewell to a loved one you will not see for years.... I believe the instinct to cry with subsequent vein cutting will be inevitable for everyone! This simple and remarkably minimal song in sound is pure melancholic beauty! The electronic piano plays the chorus with a few notes marked on a background of synthesizers and pads with an oriental style, the miraculous use of small sampled and distorted female choirs on the vocoder hypnotizes delicately like the song of sirens, small percussions and little piano keys pressed at the right place at the right time combined with sounds of mini psychedelia make this song an absolute masterpiece! For simplicity in execution and emotional involvement, the following and final track of the album "Night Sight" pales in comparison!!!

A piece of advice... let yourself go! For every melancholic moment of yours, there is a song from this album that suits you... for a painful farewell "Lost Message" and its beautiful sound orchestration will suit you! If you want to win over a woman, play the tear-jerking "One Hell Of a Party" (a very beautiful and well-played song but with one flaw... the singer seems to suffer from chronic asthma!!)

In short, very few defects and many qualities, especially in the field of artistic evolution. It doesn't matter if the critics have underestimated the album. Clearly, they didn't have the guts or the time or the way to listen to this album with their HEART! Only then will they be able to recognize its qualities!

Excellent! AIR reconfirms themselves as great musical performers in the field of light electronics.

However, if tear-wiping melodies are not for you.... Pop a Fatboy Slim CD into the stereo and go crazy!