Air – Moon Safari (Exclusive Orange vinyl)

Air's Moon Safari arrived in 1998 as the debut album by Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, and it still sounds like a defining statement from the French electronic wave that followed. Built from downtempo grooves, soft-focus synth melodies and a distinctly retro-futurist sense of arrangement, it helped push chillout and easy-listening textures into the pop conversation without losing its elegance. Pitchfork later placed it at number 46 in its best albums of the 1990s list, and the record went on to sell around two million copies worldwide, with platinum certifications in both the UK and France.

What keeps Moon Safari so replayable is how musical it is. Air were working with more than atmosphere alone: shimmering Rhodes chords, restrained brass, melodic synthesizer lines and touches that nod to Serge Gainsbourg and Burt Bacharach all give the album a warmth many late-90s electronic records never aimed for. The hit run of “Sexy Boy,” “Kelly Watch the Stars” and “All I Need” made the album inescapable at the time, while Beth Hirsch’s vocal on “All I Need” adds a human glow to all that cool design.

This reissue also lands at a moment when the album has been newly celebrated onstage, with Air performing Moon Safari in full on their anniversary tour. If you know it already, this is one of those records that explains its reputation within a few minutes; if you do not, it remains an easy way into Air’s world of weightless basslines, polished melancholy and late-night European pop craft.

Features

• Limited retail-exclusive edition
• Orange vinyl
• LP reissue
• Remastered version
• 33 RPM stereo pressing

Reviews

• Air's wonderful debut is, perhaps oddly, re-packaged as a 10th-anniversary set – Pitchfork
• none of which could outdo the Parisian duo’s lambent beauty and chic retro-futurism. – The Guardian

Genre: Electronic