Last year, French electro duo Air was drafted to compose music for a painstakingly restored hand-colored print of Georges Méliès' 1902 silent sci-fi short, A Trip To The Moon (Le Voyage Dans La Lune), an apropos pairing as Air has been drawing inspiration from the cosmos ever since their 1998 debut, Moon Safari.
After the film and its freshly recorded score premiered at last year’s Cannes to critical acclaim, musicians Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel were driven to develop their compositions even further into a full-length album, expanding on the surrealistic sonic themes and adding haunting femme vocals and lyrics by Au Revoir Simone and Beach House’s Victoria Legrand. The resulting LP is a dreamy hallucinogenic journey, with quiet ambient moments interspersed amid the high driving drama and Air’s trademark use of ‘70s-era analog synths imbuing the album with a deeply retro-futuristic atmosphere. Perfect music for a trip to the moon. (Out now via Astralwerks)
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.
