10,000 Hz Legend

Air

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 29, 2001)
• Original Release Date: May 29, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Astralwerks
• ASIN: B00005IABM
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (156 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,631 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Ambient Pop

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Previously Air's Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin made softcore collages of Pink Floyd-ish synth tones and droning French lounge pop. 10,000 Hz Legend goes further out, attaining new heights of cheesy, Space Odyssey-like computer music. Like Kraftwerk skinny-dipping with French nymphet Jane Birkin and Star Wars's R2D2, Legend swells with mad robo-love, following a computer romance amid droll tributes to vacant pop culture. Beck's appearance on "The Vagabond" proves the Loser only works well solo, making Air disappear on their own album. The absurd "Radio #1" and the sappy chorus in "How Does It Make You Feel?" could snuggle beside Celine Dion's latest yawner. But there is magic: "Radian" is a Cluster-like orb of cooing flutes, gentle rhythms, and a ghostly vocal. "Electric Performers" offers clunky electronic beats and the lines "We are the synchronizers / Machines give me some freedom." The catchy "People in the City" sounds like Mirwais producing Serge Gainsbourg, while "Don't Be Light" recalls electro Krautrockers Neu! Feeding us Moog merengue and Reese's Pieces rhythms, Air remain sweet computer boys to the core. --Ken Micallef

From URB Magazine
After the runaway success of their Moon Safari debut, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel surprised many with their score of Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides. The yin to Safari's yang, Suicides disappointed fans of Air's lighter, more accessible side. 10,000Hz Legend takes Moon Safari's pop sensibilities and Virgin's claustrophobic cinematics and mashes them together into an album of thickly layered soundscapes topped off by typical Gallic charm.

The opener, "Electronic Performers," is vintage Air, all swelling synths, gloomy piano, distorted vocals and random bleepy bits. "How Does It Make You Feel" swiftly follows, a dash of Spiritualized-meets-Pink Floyd heroin rock with what sounds like Stephen Hawking on vocals. Collage cowpoke Beck turns up on "The Vagabond," adding his drawling vocals in a murky mix of harmonica, acoustic guitar and Midnight Cowboy blues. They explore Far-Eastern soundtracking on the first half of "Radian," switching gears to grind into some sexy machine funk on "Lucky & Unhappy" and then shifting into fuzz-rock guitar with "Don't Be Light."

"People in the City" is a metallic slow-grind, like the tango done at half speed by a couple of drunken Pentium computer chips, while on "Caramel Prisoner" we get a dreamy comedown of half-remembered refrains, plundered riffs and washed-out chords. Throughout, Air manages to be melancholy and uplifting in equal measure. Living up to that old adage "talent borrows, genius steals," they seem to nick bits from everybody and nobody, producing songs that mix a disparate collection of familiar bits and pieces into a fresh and original blend.

Kieran Wyatt

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New Air...........Interesting, May 29, 2001

By	md (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews

Well this is interesting. They said it themselves: it's not Moon Safari. If you want music references then it leans a lot more towards The Virgin Suicides, but it's not that either. Basically we're looking at a more "up and at `em" album here. It's full of tight drums and good rhythms, with the usual complement of computer voices, vocoders, and this time some really nice vocals too. The usual groove comes back in now and again, but if you ever saw Air live you should recognise some of their on-stage music in this release.

There are some downsides to this record, and I couldn't help but pull out the excellent Moog Cookbook, Logan's Sanctuary, some Beck, and then start comparing names in the credits. I don't know how much of Manning, Kehew, Reitzel and Meldal-Johnsen's blood is in these tracks, but I'd sure like to find out.

Summary: You might as well buy it. Chances are you're over twenty-two and can afford it anyway. But if you don't own any other Air albums, then buy Moon Safari first. everything else will make more sense after that...........and make sure you own Midnight Vultures by Beck, just 'cause it's great.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars phantasmiglorical, March 7, 2005

By	"mugtastic" (toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

i love this album. i think both moon safari and talkie walkie are great, but there's something special here. takes you to another mental state. you may not want to be there forever, but its nice to visit. often. test your new headphones with this one. show off your stereo system. hope they put it out on sacd or dvd-a (stranger things have happened). rather than judge this effort by the naysayers, be adventurous and dive in to a world full of computers, lady lovers-(noun + verb) and french (geographically and attitudinally).

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars the coolest sounds $$$$$ can buy...., May 29, 2001

By	tron (whip city) - See all my reviews

AIR is 1/2 of a good band. The other (non-existent) half would be a band that can write songs and not rely on expensive gimmicks to fill an entire album. AIR, like so many of today's best bands, is like the Beatles post-Revolver without the songs: all you're left with is "Revolution # 9" and the sound effects track from "Tomorrow Never Knows". Another analogy would be Pink Floyd, if all they ever did was that proto-techno song on "Dark Side of the Moon", the samples of people laughing in "Time" and the intro to "Money"... Cool things, one and all, but really just a fraction of what I look for in a "band".

This album is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

It's like the frosting, but not the cake.

It's like the sizzle, but not the steak (thank you, Tom Waits!)...

I don't know why, but it seems as though no one has really done much better at combining electronics with solid songwriting than the early pioneers like Pink FLoyd, The Beatles, The WHo, or, well, Jimi Hendrix, for that matter! I will make exceptions for Beck, Super Furry Animals, Ween, and the Flaming Lips, though.

Basically, the songs on 10,000 Hz never seem to go anywhere, though not for lack of trying. You can almost hear where the ideas end and the over-reliance on electro-studio trickery begins: it's usually about a minute into the track! AIR would be well advised to stick to doing movie soundtracks and the occasional laser light show.