Pocket Symphony - Air

Pocket Symphony

Air
EMI Records.


SCQ Rating: 74%

Pocket Symphony, the band’s fourth proper LP in ten years, is irrefutably beautiful; a mix of crystalline piano, spacey acoustics, and thin vocals to comfort your headphones through cloudy wanderings. And although the band has achieved their goal of making an ideal song-cycle for the I-pod generation (as their title suggests), Air have certainly limited their talents to that singular vision, and worse, welcomed their sound into the dreaded leagues of ‘background music’.

The well-placed ‘Alone in Kyoto’ on Talkie Walkie felt appropriate as a cinematic close to that amazing album, but stretched over Pocket Symphony’s twelve songs, Air’s imaginary film scores lose their edge and become languid suites woven together. Nearly every song feels designed for soundtrack purposes; the sleep-ridden, what-to-wear solitude of Monday mornings with ‘Photograph’, watching your office-crush during lunch-hour with ‘Redhead Girl’, or your evening tram-ride home in ‘Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping’. Despite their understatedly lovely arrangements, these songs drift by like so many unmemorable stages of routine in our 9-5 days, and while they are soothing, they’re hardly exciting.

Air still manage to captivate us on several songs, however. ‘Mer Du Japon’ is an all-too-brief exercise in synth-pop, addictively energizing compared to its surrounding songs, while ‘Napalm Love’ is a haiku buzzing with a similar combination of synth, drum machine and piano. ‘One Hell of a Party’ displays the band’s recent love of rare Japanese instruments (the Koto and Shamisen) in a sparse but thrilling ballad featuring Jarvis Cocker’s breathy vocals. Even ‘Once Upon a Time’, at five minutes and featuring the same unwavering piano arpeggio, never ceases to be anything but classic Air.

The most surprising aspect of this album, perhaps, is Air’s nonchalant exit from electronic music altogether. While their organic sound was audible in Talkie Walkie, it was countered with some sparkling effects. Here we find the band completely unplugged, and while they prove that their songwriting doesn’t need effects to hide behind, I’m surely not the only fan who will miss their adventurous side.