Photo by Mathieu Cesar
Context?
You’ve been waiting six years for a new studio album by French ambient masterminds AIR (Well, unless you don’t count 2012’s soundtrack for the sci-fi classic Le Voyage Dans la Lune)? Well, it looks like you have to wait a bit longer for a proper follow-up to 2009’s Love 2. NICOLAS GODIN is following his bandmate Jean-Benoît Dunckel (who released a new solo EP earlier this year) and unleashes his first ever solo album this year. And the first teaser already sounds quite promising.
Why Should I Watch This?
Contrepoint, the debut by GODIN, will be inspired by multiple things but one main element is the work of pianist Glenn Gould and his performances of legendary Bach pieces. Each track on the record will be inspired by a song off the German composer. And the sound clearly inspired video director Sean Pecknold who put together some crazy visuals for Orca. Only two and half minutes long but packed with all sort of weird ideas. And the same goes for the song itself so we can expect one hell of an album.
Anything Else?
Contrepoint has no specific release date yet but fans of AIR can stay calm since the duo did not split up like one might assume. In the press statement for the album release NICOLAS GODIN states: ‘We weren’t surprising ourselves anymore, like other bands after ten years or more. The big challenge for an artist is to have a reason to be, because there are already plenty of records out there. I’d made a statement with Air and I wanted to go back to the classical world, to grow up musically, to renew myself.’ In the meantime enjoy this exciting piece of weirdness below.
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