Air Get to Grips With Bringing 'Love 2' on the Road

Posted on Oct 22nd 2009 11:46AM by Stephen Dowling
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There is the normal bustle of a London weekday afternoon outside the window, but inside a little bit of Paris has taken root. French duo Air -- Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin -- are busy trying to describe their latest, airy creation, 'Love 2.' Recorded in their new Atlas Studio after finishing a world tour, it seems the world's favourite Gallic chill out maestros created their least studio-bound record so far; one that tried to hint at the energy of their live shows.

'Love 2' is already being talked up as the group's best album since 1998 debut 'Moon Safari,' the record that introduced the world to sexy boys and Kelly, watching the stars. It sees Godin take to the guitar on songs such as the lilting 'African Velvet' and 'Eat My Beat,' an instrumental which sounds like it could have quite happily accompanied the punch ups in a 1970s cop show. And now Air are preparing for a year-long tour taking 'Love 2 ' out on the road from November.

The album sounds really confident, despite the wide range of styles...

NG: "It was very spontaneous recording. Some albums we try and find concepts because we have a goal, but this time it was more about getting to a new space we built in Paris and we were excited enough by the location. Everything was new -- it was like when you have a new girlfriend. It's good to record like that because it doesn't happen twice."

It's the first record made in your new studio. How exciting was that?

NG: "It was fun. Also we were discovering how it sounds, everything was a surprise. You set up a mic and you're surprised because you did not expect that sound.

"It was a warehouse, and we were looking for something with a very high ceiling, so you can build a box within a box. And that's very hard to find in Paris, there's a lot of buildings with apartments, very dense, and there's not a lot of space. It took us maybe a year-and-a-half to find.

"We came back from touring and we were surprised by the key."

'Eat My Beat' might surprise some people.

NG: "This is a jam session, quickly made. It's like a cop show from the Seventies. We did it very fast. We weren't thinking at all. We just recorded a riff, and I love the drums, and then we filled the track with keyboards, and when we couldn't fit any more we stopped the track."

So what does 'Love 2' mean?

JBD: "Maybe you can experience love for the first time when it's the second time. Because it becomes more universal. Like when you're in love with the first one, you are not really in love with the person, maybe you have a strong feeling and it's over your personality, and how you love anything and you just focus on the person, and maybe after that when you are in love you are in love with the person in question. It's real love. But really there is no reason for this title. We just thought that it was classy and stylish."

Now you have to take the songs to the stage.

JBD: "Playing in a studio is quite easy... but we realise we need to play them on stage and it's a big problem. Because we know the parts but the thing is we can't play them all together because we need like 15 people to play everything, the question is how are we going to reduce the music to make it more simple, with enough percussion and simplicity and emotions, and basically we spend a lot of time rehearsing. The music is not the most important thing in a show. It's not only about music, it's about something else, it's about spectacle, the vibration has to be exciting. "

You were using Joey Waronker (Beck, Thom Yorke) on the record but he can't tour. Do you have a new drummer yet?

NG: "We have found someone. His name is Andrew, he's English and he's very cool. We will have an English drummer, my friend. "

How is his French?

NG: "I think it needs to improve. But he plays better drums than he speaks French. Better that than the opposite.

"From experiments in the past, a lot of English and American musicians get better at French with us. At the end of the tour they should know a lot of things about food and wine."

Air's 'Love 2' is out now.