Keith McDougallMore Swedish Indie-Pop: Air France
April 25th 2008 04:58
To my knowledge, Air France have so far only released one four-song EP, On Trade Winds, and one mp3, 'Hold On To Me, Baby' Really Long Link These guys are unmistakeably kindred spirits of their labelmates and fellow Gothenburg residents, The Tough Alliance. Just like TTA, they're a Swedish indie pop band making utopian circa-1990-style dance music, with an emphasis on light, pretty high-end keyboard riffs and melodies that radiate vibes of profound rapture, deep bliss, total ecstasy, endless love, or whatever you want to call it. The difference is that Air France sound like they've had a few more pills. Their heads stuck firmly in the clouds, they're too damn high to bother with the kind of masterly production nuances, well-crafted song structures and catchy hooks that TTA are so good at. Instead, they're busy putting you in an ecstatic trance with their bongos and epic fluffy synths, and drenching everything in a haze of reverb.
'Never Content' has the obligatory piano vamp, but Air France's music is more trance or intelligent/ambient techno than house music. If you find The Tough Alliance a bit too cheesy, or if synthesized panflutes and other equally cheesy instruments make you want to puke, then I wouldn't bother with Air France. But if like me you've got a bit of a weakness for this kind of thing, and find it cute, funny and even heart-warming, you're in for a treat.
Whatever these guys are high on (Life? Love? Music, man? Or, duh, ecstasy) has utterly obliterated all traces of confrontational attitude. No TTA-style bat-wielding hooliganism here. The twee harmonised girl/boy vocals (which almost seem like an afterthought, as if this indie dance band got so high they almost forgot to be indie) don't recall Madchester, but instead that other c.1990 indie trend: shoegaze/dreampop.
This combination of fey, wispy shoe-gazing and tranced out shoe-shuffling is obviously a match made in heaven. So it makes me wonder: surely this has been done before? Well, it has: Seefeel did it. But they were much darker, with the same so-loved-up-that-it's-scary feel as My Bloody Valentine. With Air France, the sun never sets.
I've covered a bit of stuff that Air France does and doesn't sound like now, so I feel as if, to be fair, maybe I should be trying to talk about them on their own terms. Talking about a band purely in terms of external references is an easy trap to fall into, and especially with a band like Air France. While I find them exciting because they're referencing stuff that seems fresh again right now, and because not many other bands are doing what they're doing, I don't think they've quite made the leap out of the shadows (or, um, sunbeams?) of other bands just yet.
And I haven't even mentioned the most obvious reference point of all: the Avalanches. Check out 'Hold On to Me, Baby': the mix is cluttered with flutes, harps, angelic choir-like cooing, disco guitar, horses trotting, horses neighing, samples from old movies, soaring strings, warm brass... These guys are virtually an Avalanches tribute band! When I checked out their myspace Really Long Link a few weeks ago, I discovered that they'd posted the old song that the chorus from 'Since I Left You' is sampled from. This is probably a humble acknowledgment of the debt, but on the other hand, maybe they're trying to rebut/pre-empt accusations of plagiarism by pointing out that the Avalanches' sample collages aren't the most original things in the world either.
Coming soon: more on the Avalanches-Swedish indie-pop connection
'Never Content' has the obligatory piano vamp, but Air France's music is more trance or intelligent/ambient techno than house music. If you find The Tough Alliance a bit too cheesy, or if synthesized panflutes and other equally cheesy instruments make you want to puke, then I wouldn't bother with Air France. But if like me you've got a bit of a weakness for this kind of thing, and find it cute, funny and even heart-warming, you're in for a treat.
Whatever these guys are high on (Life? Love? Music, man? Or, duh, ecstasy) has utterly obliterated all traces of confrontational attitude. No TTA-style bat-wielding hooliganism here. The twee harmonised girl/boy vocals (which almost seem like an afterthought, as if this indie dance band got so high they almost forgot to be indie) don't recall Madchester, but instead that other c.1990 indie trend: shoegaze/dreampop.
This combination of fey, wispy shoe-gazing and tranced out shoe-shuffling is obviously a match made in heaven. So it makes me wonder: surely this has been done before? Well, it has: Seefeel did it. But they were much darker, with the same so-loved-up-that-it's-scary feel as My Bloody Valentine. With Air France, the sun never sets.
I've covered a bit of stuff that Air France does and doesn't sound like now, so I feel as if, to be fair, maybe I should be trying to talk about them on their own terms. Talking about a band purely in terms of external references is an easy trap to fall into, and especially with a band like Air France. While I find them exciting because they're referencing stuff that seems fresh again right now, and because not many other bands are doing what they're doing, I don't think they've quite made the leap out of the shadows (or, um, sunbeams?) of other bands just yet.
And I haven't even mentioned the most obvious reference point of all: the Avalanches. Check out 'Hold On to Me, Baby': the mix is cluttered with flutes, harps, angelic choir-like cooing, disco guitar, horses trotting, horses neighing, samples from old movies, soaring strings, warm brass... These guys are virtually an Avalanches tribute band! When I checked out their myspace Really Long Link a few weeks ago, I discovered that they'd posted the old song that the chorus from 'Since I Left You' is sampled from. This is probably a humble acknowledgment of the debt, but on the other hand, maybe they're trying to rebut/pre-empt accusations of plagiarism by pointing out that the Avalanches' sample collages aren't the most original things in the world either.
Coming soon: more on the Avalanches-Swedish indie-pop connection
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