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Hammerstein Ballroom, New York June 21, 2001 By C. Bottomley "To make another album like Moon Safari would have killed us," Air's Nicholas Godin said recently. As the French ensemble performed that album's "Talisman" at the Hammerstein, it was easy to see where such sentiments came from. Initially capable of soaring on the wings of a Moog, the tune withered into elevator muzak. In Moon Safari's place is 10,000 Hz Legend, which in May erupted from the group's Studio Appolo like Jeff Goldblum busting out of his teleporter at the end of The Fly. Anybody expecting the smooth sighs and tinkling pianos of its celebrated predecessor were faced with something consciously perverse and deformed - often in the span of one track. In place of music best heard in boutiques, we have dire guitars that suggest the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," odd time signatures, and, maybe because we expect it of Air, a vague concept of searching for a machine's soul. In short, Moon Safari was 2001. 10,000 Hz. is terribly '75. The live show substantiated whispers that Air have gone progressive. The band themselves were, in the best Pink Floyd tradition, dwarfed by their light show. As the group - Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel were joined by drummer Brian Reitzell, keyboardist James Rotondi and bassist Jason Falkner - kicked in with 10,000 Hz's doomy opener "Electronic Performers," and Godin sang "Synthesizers make me fly," banks of lights tilted upwards and bathed the audience in white strobes and abstract spectrums straight from a Leger painting. With no spotlights on the band, they were egoless drones - conduits for shifting hues and their own rock sound. Well, almost. Crouched behind his keyboards, Jean-Benoit Dunckel flamboyantly sported a cape. Alas, the dazzle could only last for so long. The bouncing new single "Radio No. 1" was tossed off as if Air were already tired of it. Although the group exploded 10,000 Hz's material - accelerating into space rock jams or guitar dementia on "People in the City" - each song existed in freeze-dried isolation. Only the manga-flavored porn of "Sex Born Poison" seemed to flex its tentacles, and only "Playground Love" hit a real note of techno-human melancholy. The group were all innocent smiles however. And clearly the concept that an encore is preceded by applause has not yet reached France, because after their brief set finished with the tedious alternating tempos of "Don't Be Light," they bounded out for two more songs. "Radian" achieved the evening's ultimate effect: after a while it seemed like the band weren't really there and someone was simply playing a record. Air have come to realize that there's more to life than beauty. But while 10,000 Hz. might still surrender its secrets, its creators have yet to find anything better to replace it with onstage. |
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