French pop-electronica duo Air's release "Talkie Walkie," while an excellent introduction to synth-pop, is an album divided against itself, warring between a happy-go-lucky, romantic spirit and a melancholy, dark tendency, unified only by an air of inaccessibility. "Talkie Walkie" marks another point in Air's arc from the dance club electronica of their 1998 debut, "Moon Safari," through the subdued soundtrack for "The Virgin Suicides" to a more psychedelic (think the Beach Boys's "Pet Sounds") pop sound.
I should admit before I continue, I have not been a loyal Air fan since 1998, and I hadn't even heard of an electronica album before this one. On my first listen, I was confused as to why it was labeled "pop," but now I understand. The album is not industrial noise --beeps, squawks and city traffic -- but synthesized backbeats and melodies underneath piano, guitar and delicate vocals. Vocals range from ethereal, almost breathless whispers on "Cherry Blossom Girl" to the vocals on "Run," which seem as if Air's Jean-Beniot Dunckel and Nicolas Godin were trying to recreate as closely as possible the vocal style of Gollum from the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Happily, the standard is a relatively processed mix of Dunckel and Godin.
As the singer-songwriters of the French electronica genre, Air infuses the stark tracks with wit and warmth. The opening track, "Venus," begins, "You could be from Venus, I could be from Mars," but is far from tongue-in-cheek. It is, like many of the tracks, a meditation on love. This love is tentative in "Venus" and on the other lighthearted tracks, like "Cherry Blossom Girl." But like every singer-songwriter duo, Air has a lower side.
Tracks like "Another Day" and "Run" bear down with slow beats and minor chords, at times sounding like what you would expect to hear in a haunted house. The darker songs seem heavy-handed in contrast with lighter tracks; to have these almost spooky songs mixed in with bright songs like the stand-out "Mike Mills" is somewhat jarring-- almost as if Air could not decide on a direction for the album and simply put two together.
Mediating between the two sides of "Talkie Walkie" are the three instrumental tracks. However, they show a leaning toward the more lighthearted side of the album. These tracks make the most use of non-synthesized music. Piano, strings and even whistles temper the created sounds where human vocals do not.
For me, the romantic faction of "Talkie Walkie" is the clear winner. Dunckel and Godin seem more at home and more inventive here, both musically and lyrically. The lyrics are clever and lovable, as on "Cherry Blossom Girl": "I don't want to be shy, can't stand it anymore, just want to say 'Hi' to the one that I love," and "XX XY that's why it's you and me" on "Biological," a song about love on a genetic level. The wit and whimsy that are so plain in tracks like these get obscured on the heavier tracks. The sometimes grating electronica stifles Air's humanity on tracks like "Venus."
For all the warmth that Air's romantic and pop sensibilities brings to "Talkie Walkie," it is still not an especially accessible album. Even masked by the vocal, piano, guitar and string arrangements, the songs do not envelop, remaining distant and unattached. Perhaps that is the aim of Dunckel and Godin, to perpetuate a "hipper than thou" attitude which will unify the radically different parts of the recording.
Taken as a whole, "Talkie Walkie" is an album divided against itself that manages to stand. It would have been more powerful and cohesive had Dunckel and Godin picked a tone and stuck with it for a whole album. For its inaccessibility, "Talkie Walkie" delivers a few catchy, standout songs, "Cherry Blossom Girl" and "Universal Traveler."
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