Three summers ago, Air was everywhere.
The elegant electro-pop beats and synthesized symphonics of their Moon Safari album emanated from smokey downtown clubs and swanky Yorkville wine bars, from car stereos and backyard patios. They could even be heard hawking hair products on TV.
Judging from the mixed reactions to the French duo's follow-up, 10,000 Hz Legend -- which brings them to Kool Haus Wednesday -- the new disc may not be destined to be the breezy crossover hit its predecessor was.
That's just fine with Air's Nicolas Godin. Just don't call 10,000 Hz Legend a darker album.
"Not darker, deeper," Godin says over the phone from Air's Parisian headquarters. "There's a larger range of emotion in it. We had so much fun in the studio recording it, that, for me, I can't say that it's dark. We were in a very good mood when we were doing this music."
Either way, the deeper adventures of Air have polarized critics and fans.
North American journalists have mostly been quick to embrace the new album's warm electronic murk, while many of their British and European counterparts have dismissed it as a pretentious "prog" affair.
Designed in a Paris studio by Godin, a would-be architect, and musical partner Jean-Benoit Dunckel, a former physics teacher, it succeeds in taking Air's trademark sound in a new direction.
Says Godin: "It's a trip inside of us. Moon Safari was more outer space."
Where Moon Safari used out-moded equipment to create sunny futuristic pop, and Air's 2000 soundtrack to the film Virgin Suicides was a Pink Floyd-inspired exploration of rock, 10,000 Hz Legend uses state-of-the-art computers and programming to an often visceral, funky effect.
"On Moon Safari we were much more afraid of the machines," Godin says. "That's why we used antique keyboards and vintage equipment, because they were warm and safe and basic. This time, we decided not to be scared."
The disc also contains flashes of subtle humour that could easily be overlooked amid the heavier musical scope.
The track How Does It Make You Feel? was rooted in a studio joke and features a computer voice box pouring its "heart" out in a sappy monologue to a woman. Wonder Milky Bitch is a bawdy tale about a farm girl read in a gravelly voice. "It's a tribute to Lee Hazlewood," Godin explains. "He's the American Serge Gainsbourg."
But no tune captures the Air mission better than Electronic Performers.
"We wanted to write a song about everyday life," says Godin with a laugh. "So we wrote about programming the synchronization with our computer because that is our every day life. I want to be honest with my audience."
He adds: "The machines give everything they can, and they are not interested by the fact that we are Air.
"That's why we like having machines around us more than human beings. We trust the machines. We really think they are the future of humanity. We are in love with them."
