don’t wake up, I feel strange when you go
Talkie Walkie has a smooth evening charm to it which is why, I suppose, it was my soundtrack for driving at night for most of 2004 (until Funeral came out and completely took over my days and nights for the rest of the year). Gone is the retro/disco analogue fetishism that the earlier AIR albums were more or less based around. Instead, taking their cues from their score for The Virgin Suicides, they have developed a lush, downbeat pop sound that recollects sixties French greats like Serge Gainsbourg (heck, they even nicked the album title from him) and Françoise Hardy, but awash in a haze of electronic buzzing. The lyrical felicity of the artists they draw on is not carried over, they remain as with the earlier albums a wafer-thin afterthought to the swaying, luxurious compositions. Their increased presence is notable only for the sea change in musical style rather than a need to say anything.
Once The Virgin Suicides came out, I felt that this was the necessary direction for them to go, the slower, more textured sound of songs like “Playground Love” was their first best destiny, a smoky Gallic elegance that’s so rare in this day and age. So right from the opening moments of the album, with the thick tread of the piano and a fuzzily strummed guitar behind the cold, bittersweet vocals, it was clear they were on the right path. They even mix things up a bit (but only a tiny bit) with an encroaching Japanese influence that fits well into their stargazing luscious pop sound. The blissful skipping, stuttered beats and swooning chorale vocals of “Run” make it the obvious high point of the album, stoned immaculate. The evocative instrumental named after music video director and sleeve-designer Mike Mills is the only moment that really calls back to the Moon Safari days and even that has a much more considered, elegant sweep to it. The thumping electric guitar-centric “Surfing on a Rocket” is another nice change of scenery, as is “Alpha Beta Gaga” with its incongruously ebullient whistling. “Biological” is a bit saucy with its refrain of ‘I need your DNA’ but the song kind of slumps the album for six minutes before the wonderful conclusion with “Alone in Kyoto” playing out like an end credits scroll for a postmodern romance.
****
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