The Beat Surrender

Very few bands in electronic music have managed to maintain the standard over their entire career, it seems to be one of those genres that see’s people straddling across sounds and coming up with inconsistent output. As a result some bands and artists have managed to forge a huge name for themselves based generally on either one good album or a few good tracks.

One such band that fall into that category for me are Air. The Virgin Suicides soundtrack was decent enough and Moon Safari is a classic album. Take Cherry Falls out of the last album Talkie Walkie and it was a generally disappointing affair, it still managed to sell 800,000 copies though which goes some way to proving my point. 10,000hz Legend was also a slightly fragmented listen for me, too much filler and aimless tracks spoilt what could have otherwise been a good album.

So the pressure is on Air a little bit with the release of latest album Pocket Symphony (out on Virgin Records now), reputations can easily be lost as they can be gained. No surprise then that they’ve tried to drag in a couple of guest appearances to boost the profile of the album and give some of the tracks much needed emotional input on the vocals. Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy frontman) both guest on two of the best tracks on the album. They both give trademark sardonic and slightly grumpy delivery on Hell Of A Party and Somewhere Between Waking And Sleeping. They are excellent choices to perform the tracks, you can recognise them instantly and they are two of the best ‘phrasers’ in music over the last ten years.

It’s true that the album is a damn site richer for their contribution, without them the other really good tracks probably wouldn’t stand out as much as they do. Space Maker is the slightly sinister opener that sets the tone for the feel of the rest of the album, with tracks like Napalm Love and Mayfair Song edging back towards the darkness that was a feature of the Virgin Suicides soundtrack. The single Once Upon A Time still sounds just as beautiful on the album as it did at the time as single and the whispered Photograph has a lo-fi edge to it.

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