Pocket Symphony
Label: Astralwerks
Length: LP
Website: http://www.pocket-symphony.com/
Release Date: 2007-03-06
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Pocket Symphony
Pocket Symphony will be identified as quite possibly the most understated event that French electronic act Air has ever hosted. Syrupy-warm vocal tracks on the duo’s fourth proper album sedate to great effect, but the hushed ambient affairs that bookend Pocket Symphony find members Nicolas Godin and JB Dunckel at their best ‘ see Moon Safari and the Virgin Suicides soundtrack for similar benchmarks. The moody verses and acoustic guitar on Pocket‘s ‘Left Bankâ?� are met with bending, barely-there keys and almost chipper backups at the chorus, clashing mildly with a glum Jarvis Cocker over an elegant arrangement of traditional Japanese stringed instruments and a sample-and-synth backdrop on ‘One Hell of a Party.â?� The huge piano melancholia of ‘Lost Messageâ?� mirrors the pieces that Air penned for Charlotte Gainsbourg recently, but as the vocal duties are of the boys’-club variety on Pocket Symphony, Gainsbourg is sadly nowhere in earshot. In its final enchanting bed of simple synth tones and electric piano, though, we hear what superproducer Nigel Godrich has returned for: an exchange of pleasantries at a soft-pedaled event that only Air could provide.
This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2007.