Air

Fact Sheet

Country	France
Years active	1995-

Air is a French band, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel. Their acclaimed first album Moon Safari was followed by the release of Premiers Symptomes, 10,000 Hz Legend, the soundtrack to the film The Virgin Suicides and Talkie Walkie.

Although Air's music is often referred to as electronica or trip-hop and found in such bins in record stores, their form of electronic music really owes more to the syntheziser sounds of the 1970s such as Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis. Other influences that are more readily apparent than house and techno are psychedelic rock pioneers Pink Floyd and Krautrockers, Tangerine Dream (although there are some echoes of dance music styles in the production). The "electronica" tag may be more due to their presence on the Astralwerks record label than anything else. Air's music also has, at times, jazz inflections and their ability to improvise is more clearly highlighted in the live arena.

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