Search - Air :: Talkie Walkie [Limited Edition with Bonus DVD]

Great Return To Moon Safari Style

Cary S. Whitt | Columbus,Ohio USA | 02/11/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"... Ok, now, with that off my chest, let's talk about Talkie Walkie.Like most Air fans, I was rather disappointed with 10,000 HZ Legend and really wanted a Moon Safari part 2. Talkie Walkie gives us a hybrid of The Virgin Suicides soundtrack and pieces of that great Moon Safari record. For starters they went back to adding simple and heavy atmosphere on this record. They lost the useless collaborations seen on 10,000, and made the most of the electronic landscapes they so beautifully create.There are at least 4 definite ringers on here. Starting with the lead single, Cherry Blossom Girl, a beautiful dramatic tune with coy female vocals and melodic guitars. The third track on the album is probably my favorite one. Titled Run, its a bit more futuristic in scope, a bit more fun as well with this robotic vocal that repeats the chorus, run run run run run run run. It just sounds really great when cranked up to 11. I was very happy with the inclusion of Alone In Kyoto, the song Air wrote for the film Lost In Translation. Like the film, the music has a way of setting a mood and transforming the atmosphere with it's lush yet minimal arrangement. I also like Surfin On A Rocket, a mid-tempo, single-to-be, that in ways, harks back to the always great, Sexy Boy. The rest of Talkie Walkie is equally up to the task and makes this one great piece of work.In 1998, I listed Air's Moon Safari, #1 on my best of the year list (check out my lists in the listmania area for all my best of lists) Since then, they've missed the target a few times but always manage to produce enough quality tunes to keep me buying. Talkie Walkie is not only a return to form, but one of the best electronic records I've heard this year."

ANOTHER WARNING - won't play on some pc's

bhr | Bryn Mawr, PA USA | 02/03/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Backing up another reviewer here. This is not a review of the music, but rather of the cd.I do most of my music listening at work. I buy cd's and burn them to my mp3 player.This cd has all that awful multimedia crapola on it with a magungus autostart program. Practically crashed my xp computer. Also, the copy protection makes such a menace to Windows Media Player that there is a huge delay before the cd will even play... even if I put the cd on repeat, the first song takes about 5 minutes to start. The music is good, but the package is such a load (come on, guys, listening to a cd should not be work) that I won't be buying any Virgin/EMI cd's again any time soon."

Best of 2004 so far

Manny Hernandez | Bay Area, CA | 02/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album by the French chillout duo is not only the best of 2004 so far, but also more than just a great comeback after the rather odd '10,000 Hz' album. Air has once more steered the chillout/lounge boat into a new direction. With a sound that borrows from the "Virgin Suicides" album here and there (no coincidence that the last track, "Alone in Kyoto" was used by the movie's director Sofia Coppola in the soundtrack for her latest movie, "Lost in Translation"), Air's music sound better than ever. This time around, uber-producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Travis, Beck, etc.) co-produced and mixed the album, which largely accounts for its sound that blends a bit of spacey and happy, balanced out against some darker and downbeat sounds. Overall, the album tranports you with its varied atmospheres since the very opening well into tracks such as "Run", "Universal Traveler" (my favorite), "Surfing on a Rocket" and "Another Day". Well over a week ago, I popped it into my CD player... so far, it's managed to stay in all this time. Highly recommended, great piece of work, very fun and interesting to listen to."