Band of the Week: Air France

[December 15-21]

Air France
Sounds Like: Pop / Electronic / Atmospheric
Drinking Buddies: Studio, M83, Julian Fane.

Synopsis: A serene synthesis of sounds.

Makes You Want To...: Travel; Meditate; Stay indoors.
[Myspace]

One week, one band. You know the drill.
This week, the featured artist is Air France.



Not to start this off in a totally cliched manner, but holy crap, what is up with the weather? We've got the worst ice storm to hit the northeast in... well, as long as most people care to remember, a nasty bout of Canadian chill swarming into the midwest, and it's even snowing down on the Gulf of Mexico. If you live in North America, you are no doubt silly for leaving the house, yelling at your local meteorologist on the television, or sipping hot chocolate/tea from the comfort of your warm and cozy home.

On these frozen nights that seem to curse the very life out of the land with a blanket of snow and ice, it's nice to hide in the most hospitable place you can find. But for all the frostbites and car wrecks that this wicked weather may bring, one must admit, there's an extreme beauty to be found in nature, even at it's cruelest and coldest. And maybe this is just an opinionated suggestion, but I see this beauty personified into the sweet sounds crafted by Air France.

Adding to the list of bands that are not geographically exact (I'm From Barcelona [from Sweden], Architecture In Helsinki [from Australia], Beirut [from New Mexico]), Air France is a duo from Gothenburg Sweden. With careful detail, and meticulous skill, Air France creates intricately textured songs with subtlety and finesse. The moods are light and vibrant, and play on with a quircky sense of repetition. The songs they play are almost mystic in nature.

It's hard to capture the sense of atmosphere in a song; hard to define the image of a place in the notes and chords - rythmns and melodies - squeezed into a musical composition. It takes a novel understanding of the thematics that one can develop in song. Bands like Sigur Rós, Explosions In The Sky, and The Decemberists know how to dilligently use their instruments to their songs advantage, to better paint the picture they are trying to tell. Air France takes the same concept into tow, and with a steady rythmn, shape scenery around the song. Scenery of driving down a road through the countryside with farms passing by the windows; of a plane in flight over the Atlantic, the destined continent just out of eyeshot, but approaching by the second; of a fire cracking as snow softly covers the backyard. With an active imagination, Air France can take their listeners on rides no book or movie could ever show or tell.

Air France is currently taking things at a very slow pace, and are remaining quiet back in Sweden. Though we may not be hearing much from the band themselves, you can certainly catch a glimpse of their wonderful music. Air France presently has no official LP, but they do have two EPs, their On Trade Winds EP, as well as their more recent No Way Down EP. You can snag yourself a copy, watch some videos, and listen to their wonderful music on their Myspace right now!


Stay indoors during these cold times, reader. Have a wonderful week.