SPIRIT OF '76
Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Ken Micallef
LOVE IT LIVE
Pocket Symphony recalls Premier Symptomes in mood, direction and execution. Air used a variety of synths: the ARP 2600, Dave Smith Poly Evolver, Clavia Nord Lead and Elektron Monomachine, as well as Korg and Yamaha synths. The difference is that real drummers accompanied the band's live performances and the occasional Machinedrum beat. The music is seamless, subtle and constant, placing the listener in a nocturnal slow-motion world. Air toyed with IRCAM plug-ins but ultimately abandoned the idea. In fact, there are no plug-ins on the record. What sounds like a drum loop is often a live drummer playing a part as if it were a loop. And vocals and instrumental performances are live and unedited wherever possible.
“If you hear three choruses within a song, then we have played three choruses,” Godin insists. “We hate to cut and paste.”
“But sometimes we can't do it,” Dunckel adds. “On ‘Night Sight,’ we couldn't do it because that was improvised. We jam and improvise on chords, then throw up ideas and decide which to keep. Originally, there was no beat in that track, no measure, [which makes it] a nightmare to move sounds within the computer.”
Air's preference for live, practically stripped-down tracks influenced the duo's use of EQ settings and effects (sparse delay, reverb and added treble for Dunckel vocals), live-string orchestrations and drums. But certain effects are forbidden. “Since Moon Safari, we can't use vocoders anymore,” Dunckel says, laughing. “We've burned that trick.”
As for the live drums, former Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen and Beck's Joey Waronker provided bubbling rhythms. “We recorded a lot of the drums at the end of the songs,” Dunckel recalls. “For ‘Once Upon a Time’ and ‘Photograph,’ we recorded the tracks and added the drums at the end of the process. We will record with the Elektron or a click, then hire a drummer for one day and make him record drums for all the tracks. Then we decide if we want live drums or machine drums on the track.”
“For some songs,” Godin explains, “Tony Allen had the click in his ears then played the entire track. On ‘Space Maker,’ we asked Joey to play the beat as if it was a loop. It is supposed to sound like a loop, but it is a real drummer playing all the way through.”
NAPALM GIRL
Air likes to work fast — so fast that for some tracks, they can barely remember what happened. The pair bounces memories off of each other to come up with a blow-by-blow description. And they end up remembering the synths used for dense tracks like “Napalm Love” and “Redhead Girl.”
“On ‘Napalm Love,’ the bass was recorded first,” Godin says. “The rattling sound in the intro is the Elektron Machinedrum. I was playing with one of the knobs — I have no idea what I was doing, but I was making the beat. The guitar doubles the melody with the Nord Lead. Then that low warbling tone is the Monomachine. It has a special knob that controls the delay. But [at that point], the delay is about to feed back. At the end, I put it down, but not too much. The entire sound is feeding back and filtering. We recorded that all live, then overdubbed where he had to. We don't program keyboards. That is the Poly Evolver doing the percussion in the left channel, and that deep tone is the Nord Lead again.”
The eerie vocals and somnambulant tones of “Redhead Girl” come near the album's end, like the moon fading before sunrise. Dunckel's high-pitched vocals were panned in Pro Tools for an ominous spreading effect; the Poly Evolver cycles in Moog-like tones; the Korg MS-20 produces a whirring hum; and at one point, vocals loop like a spooky, hovering siren that recalls The Beach Boys' “‘Til I Die.”
“I think I recorded my vocal in stereo there,” Dunckel says. “We looped it and added the fade-in on the computer. That is all it is — I am sorry!”
THE WHOLE JOURNEY
Ultimately, Dunckel describes Pocket Symphony as an album of dual perceptions. Like their roles as hardworking musicians turned electronic trendsetters, Dunckel and Godin see the value of double entrendre, both literal and figurative.
“We are always doing symphonies,” he explains. “But we do it with small things — little beat boxes, instruments — and as a kind of night cycle. And there is the contrast between the word ‘pocket,’ which is small, and ‘symphony,’ which is complicated and wide.”
“Listening to an album used to be like a voyage,” Godin says, returning to his earlier theme. “Now, with the iPods and the shuffle mode, that way of making albums will disappear, and it will turn into a new thing — who knows what? People will download Pocket Symphony and listen to it illegally or not, but will anyone listen to it from beginning to middle to end?”
AIR SUPPLIES
Computer, DAW, recording hardware
Apogee Rosetta A/D converters
Apple Mac G5 computer
Digidesign Pro Tools|HD
Synths, instruments
ARP Solina String Ensemble synth
Clavia Nord Lead, Nord Lead 2 synths
Dave Smith Poly Evolver synth
Elektron Monomachine SFX6 keyboard/sequencer
Fender Rhodes Mark II Suitcase 73 electric piano
Fender '60s Telecaster guitar
Gibson '60s CS356 guitar
Guild '70s acoustic guitar
Hartmann Neuron neuronal resynthesizing keyboard
Hofner Club Bass 500/2
Korg MS-20 synth
Yamaha CS-60 synth
Sampler, drum machines
ARP 2600 synth (for percussion sounds)
Boss SP-202 Dr. Sampler
Elektron Machinedrum SPS-1
Mics, mic preamp, EQ, compressor, effects
AKG C 12 VR (vox), AKG C 414 B-XL II (piano) mics
API Lunchbox effects rack
Boss VT-1 Voice Transformer effects unit
Neve 1070 preamp
Urei 1176 compressor
Mixer
Mackie 32-channel mixer
Monitors
Genelec 1031As
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
