Air

At a time when its native country had become the new hotbed of electronic music, French duo Air distinguished itself from its more house-music-oriented contemporaries (Daft Punk, Dimitri From Paris) with soft, keyboard-heavy compositions that recalled music from the '60s and '70s. With Jean-Benoit Dunckel having been formally trained in classical music at Paris' Conservatoire, he and his musical partner, Nicolas Godin, often cited classical composers like Debussy and Bach as influences. But their lush melodies also drew inspiration from sources as varied as Ennio Morricone, Brian Wilson, and Moog composer Jean Jacques Perrey.

Godin and Dunckel met during the mid-’80s while attending college in Versailles; they were introduced by Alex Latrobe (later known as the producer Alex Gopher), with whom they formed the indie-rock band Orange. After graduation, they continued to collaborate without Latrobe, recording their first single as Air, “Modular Mix,” in 1995 for France’s Source label. Three years later Source released Air’s full-length debut, Moon Safari, which landed the band on countless critics’ top-10 lists. In 1999 Air issued an expanded EP, Premiers Symptomes, which previously had been released in Europe in 1997 and which collected the band’s pre–Moon Safari singles. Continually promising a proper followup to Moon Safari, Air next composed the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides (#161, 2000) before releasing 10,000 Hz Legend in 2001. The latter recording featured vocals by Beck and Japan’s Buffalo Daughter.

They soon attracted more critical attention with Talkie Walkie and its blithe “Alpha Beta Gega”. Pocket Symphony, their fourth studio album proper released in March 2007, was a sonic return to what the band called the original “pastoral atmospherics” of Moon Safari.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)