Air - 10000 Hz. Legend
(Astralwerks)
Air are electronic performers proclaiming the latest death of
rock. They open their latest album, 10000 Hz. Legend, with the
proclamation "We are electronic performers," sung through a
vocoder, mocking every rock musician and critics' opening insult
that electronic music has no soul. By using a vocoder, singing
verses like "We are the synchronizers," no one can be sure whose
voice we are hearing--the ghost in the machine, the machine itself,
or the human being operating the machine--as the voice makes
its claim to its ample provision of soul.
When Air isn't singing about sex, they often go back to these
vague notions of the place of electronics in music and therefore
society. The album's cover is a very glossy, futuristic image,
looking like a Martian outpost. However, the band, while embracing
their use of technology, seems to dismiss its byproducts, namely
busy city life. On "People in the City," the band acts high and
mighty, treating the nine to five city workers like mindless
ants in an ant farm, laughing at the mundaneness of their lives.
However, when the band addresses country folk two songs later
on "Wonder Milky Bitch," their views are even more insulting,
as they imply all simple country girls know how to do is suck and
fuck.
It seems as if the band's ideal person is that ghost inside the
machine. On "Sex Born Poison," the Japanese women of Buffalo
Daughter sing as if they are computers, acting hard to get with
their human-form pursuers. They call the man who wants them
"prince of biomass" as they urge him to "shoot your gun of life"
while watching them. This ideal is the true and sole ideal for
Air--that of the electronics, which is why they bother making
the proclamation of "We are electronic performers" at the beginning
of the album. The word "electronic" does not just specify what
the performer performs, as in a "performer of electronics;" it is
a qualifier for the type of performer. The more the machines
let the tones and beat flow in precise step, the less the human
animal contributes his "Poison," the better the music (according
to Air) sounds.
So, this is why everyone should hammer that last nail in rock's
coffin--embrace the lockstep or be considered a relic. To move
further away from human form, the band removes much of the pop
sound that made their 1998 album Moon Safari a hit, sort of splitting
the difference between that album and the band's soundscape-based
soundtrack to the movie The Virgin Suicides. The music is darker
and more mellow, never overproducing the music with needless
layers of fluff, emphasizing the lush, orchestral washes of sound
that gave the duo the "Pink Floyd of electronica" tag they have
enthusiastically embraced.
However, in 10,000 Hz. Legend, all Air has really created is
suitable background music for that thing they always sing about--sex.
When you think about
it, probably more people have had sex to disco music than any other
music in the history of the world, but that doesn't make it
great music; it only means it was simple, light, and groovy enough
to dance and have lots of sex to. And that is about all you can say about
10,000 Hz. Legend. With the pop songs of Moon Safari all but
removed (except "Radio #1") and the soundscapes similar to
the Virgin Suicides soundtrack much less developed, all you have
left is music that is simple, light, and groovy. How that makes
them champions of anything, I don't know.
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