Air
The Virgin Suicides

THE REVIEW

February 14, 1999. Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, two reclusive and unknown French counterfeiters, are fresh off the astonishing heist that has gone down in history as "Moon Safari" (1998). Satisfied with the proceeds of this theft, they live incognito in Paris. Their hideout is an anonymous apartment in the Marais, at whose door only an acronym appears: AIR (Amour, Imagination, Rêve).

On that cold Parisian morning, someone slid a white envelope under the door: for a "Hollywood-style" fee, a young American director commissions them to compose the soundtrack for the film "The Virgin Suicides," a story based on a real event in the USA in the early '70s. The task is challenging: to reproduce the characteristic sounds of the era in which the events took place.

The envelope remains a few days on the VCS3, which, upon entrance, serves more as an ashtray.
The low clouds have taken root over the Seine and it has been raining for days... perhaps they have already said it all, perhaps they only make elevator and airport music... they are in an evident creative and identity crisis. However, the contract is one that cannot be refused...

They then decide on a desperate move: to break into Abbey Road Studios in London and steal the archives.
After a lysergic night in Camden Town, they walk, still in darkness, along the banks of the Regent's Canal and soon arrive near the famous London studios.

Ignoring the security system, they attempt to access through the fire escape and, with methods well known to the Pigalle criminal underworld, they easily handle the panic door lock. However, the alarm system does its dirty work and goes off immediately. The two race towards the basement and enter a room marked by the sign "Archives 1970-1975": all that remains is to grab the first tapes within reach and make a run for it.

Returning tumultuously to Paris, they discover that the tapes in their possession are discarded recordings by Pink Floyd, dated January 1972: the unfinished sequel to Meddle, rejected and disowned before publication by Roger Waters.

The unexpected stroke of luck revitalizes them: there is nothing left to do but pick up the Precision bass, Fender guitar, Hammond organ, and dust off the VCS3.

They can finally begin a sublime work of musical assembly, aware of being refined plagiarists of an ethereal and timeless mood.

AIR - The Virgin Suicides - 2000