Air came to fame with Sexy Boy in 1998 but made their debut three years earlier with this inventive piece of electronica on a compilation album for Source.
All I really know of Air is that pair of hits back in 1998, begun with the sensual, atmospheric earworm Sexy Boy. I guess they were forerunners of the electronica boom of the late 1990s but they always seemed a little removed from that: more likely to be heard in the chill-out room than on the dancefloor.
That first album Moon Safari was an instant classic, producing those two hit singles – Sexy Boy and Kelly Watch The Stars – but they vanished from my life fairly soon after that.
The influences of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel ranged from with ’60s movie soundtracks to easy listening, filtered through disco, new wave and ambient music.
The duo had grown up in Versailles and Dunckel, whose musical tastes ranged from Ravel to Joy Division and Grace Jones, went on to study mathematics at the Conservatoire in Paris, playing in an alternative band called Orange.
They were joined by Godin, an architecture student who had played in rock bands as a teenager before dabbling in soul and hip-hop, and when Orange split up Godin was asked to contribute a track to a compilaton album.
Created with an eight-track, drum loops and a handful of vintage synths and keyboards, Modulor Mix is a tribute to one of his architecture heroes, Le Corbusier. Following the track’s release on the 1995 collection Source Lab, Godin recruited Dunckel to help him further develop the music he was making, and Air was born.
Making their debut in 1996 with the singles Modular, Casanova 70 and Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi, Air also remixed Depeche Mode and Neneh Cherry before releasing their debut EP Premiers Symptômes in July 1997 followed by their debut album, Moon Safari, in January 1998.
Recorded at London’s Abbey Road as well as several studios in Paris, the album expanded on Air’s sound with a sumptuous blend of electronic and acoustic instrumentation. They went on to record the score for Sofia Coppola’s debut film The Virgin Suicides in 2000, featuring vocals by Coppola’s husband, Thomas Mars of fellow Versailles band Phoenix.
Air later contributed the track Alone In Kyoto to the soundtrack of Coppola’s film Lost In Translation, and another to Marie Antoinette, while future releases included collaborations with Beck, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and Beach Houser’s Victoria LeGrand.
Their subsequent solo projects included another architecturally inspired album from Godin, Concrete and Glass, and Dunckel’s 2018 album H+ and score for the 2020 film Été 85 (Summer of 85) and more recently the band commemorated the 25th anniversary of Moon Safari by performing the album in its entirety on an international tour.
Meanwhile, Modular has been remixed several times, most notably in a hip-hop version by DJ Cam: