AIR Tonight at Yugong Yishan

French duo AIR will perform two shows at Yugong Yishan over the next two nights. To get you in the mood for the electro-pop group’s show, we’ve decided to post Lisa Liang’s profile of the band that first appeared as a feature article in the September issue of the Beijinger magazine.

Sep 26-27
AIR
RMB 700, advance RMB 550.
8pm, 11pm (after party). Yugong Yishan (6404 2711)

Few bands are lucky enough to gain the favor of movie directors who regard music as an integral part of film (read: Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino). AIR is one such band. After the 1997 release of the French duo’s critically acclaimed debut album, Moon Safari, they caught the attention of Sofia Coppola, who invited them to score The Virgin Suicides (1999), her grim first feature-length film about the self-destruction of five sheltered daughters from Anytown, USA. (Coppola would also direct the video for the film’s signature recording, an AIR lullaby befittingly entitled “Playground Love,” which featured forever-young Kirsten Dunst and a then up-and-coming long-haired Josh Hartnett.)
Since then, AIR – which consists of architecturally-minded Nicolas Godin and former student of mathematics Jean-Benoit Dunckel – has worked with Coppola on all of her subsequent films, contributing “Alone in Kyoto” for her Academy award-winning 2001 film, Lost in Translation (a process which introduced them to the Japanese shamisen, an instrument which features prominently on 2007’s Pocket Symphony), and “Il Secondo Giorno” on Marie Antoinette (2005).

It is appropriate that Coppola would select the psychedelic electro-pop group to provide the backdrops for her films; like them, AIR’s music possesses a certain ethereal quality, a moody and melancholic calming sort of madness that is not quite fantasy, yet severed from reality. At their worst, they carry comparisons to a Moby or Fat Boy Slim – that is, trance-like instrumental sequences with mainstream palatability; at best, they are the creators of a soundtrack to some fantastically twisted dream that you never want to end.
As they wrap up their Close Up world tour on the coattails of Pocket Symphony (and a tenth anniversary reissue of Moon Safari released earlier this year featuring rare remixes and live sessions recorded over the past decade), they’ll be offering just a handful more shows – including a September Beijing gig, which promoter Pierre A Blanc promises will be “something completely different than what they’ve been doing on tour for the past year.” Yugong Yishan has been elected their venue of choice; after participating in massive music festivals like North America’s Coachella and Australia’s V Festival, “they really want to play at a small venue and do something very alive,” says A Blanc. ”They’ve even taken a month off from performing specifically to design the perfect show in the venues, which have been selected especially for being smaller in size.”
Venues for these last few shows (two in Beijing, two in Israel and one in Slovenia) will be specifically tailored to their environments, with special stage, lighting and sound equipment set up for very unique and exclusive performances.

Drummer Joey Waronker, who has worked with Beck, Smashing Pumpkins and R.E.M., will be performing with AIR for their remaining shows. DJs at the post show party (which kicks off at 11pm and is free) includes Beijing’s very own Dead J, accompanied by visual artist Chen Xiongwei.

Links and Sources
AIR Official Site
AIR MySpace Page
Yugong Yishan Official Site
Palo Alto Daily News: image
Photo: Courtesy of the organizers