10,000 Hz Legend [20th Anniversary Edition]

Air: Nicolas Godin, JB Dunckel.
Additional personnel includes: Beck (vocals, harmonica, keyboards); Justin Meldal-Johnsen (vocals, bass); Sugar, Yumiko, Lisa Papineau, Jean Croc, Corky Hale, Jason Falkner, Ken Andrews, Barbara Cohen (vocals); Julia Sarr, Olyza (harp); Elin Carlson (whistle); Brian Reitzell (drums, programming); Roger Joseph Manning Jr (programming).
Recorded in Paris, France and Los Angeles, California.
Before this album, the last full-length offering from French duo Air was the soundtrack to the Virgin Suicides. That effort marked so much expansion on and progression from its predecessor (Air's debut MOON SAFARI) that a further push up the mountain seemed a logical expectation for 10,000 HZ. Instead, Air chose to jump off the mountain into a strange, forbidding ravine. You'll find neither the pure electro-pop hooks of MOON SAFARI nor the elegant, surreal majesty of VIRGIN SUICIDES here. Instead, the Air boys offer an insular record thick with ironic self-regard and tongue-in-cheek humor.
Beck is a guest here, and his voice and pomo-slacker sensibility blend right in, but for the most part, Air lets the synthesizers and vocoders take center stage. Listening to 10,000 HZ LEGEND is somewhat akin to sitting in a bar and getting hit on by an android; in fact there's actually some Barry White-style bedroom talk filtered through electronic processing early on in the album. How far you're willing to go with these Gallic pop-bots probably depends on how far they've taken you in the past.