#38: Air - 10 000 Hz Legend

So my opinion on Air's 10 000 Hz Legend was requested, and as a gentleman, I have obliged. So here's my opinion: I have no idea what the hell to think of this record other than that everything I've read about it so far is pretty much right.

As the band's second proper album (not counting the score to The Virgin Suicides), 10 000 Hz Legend is tough to get a read on. The first few tracks feel a bit like something the band could have sniffed around in the Moon Safari sessions, but then it began to sound like I had inadvertently bought the one existing copy of the secret album Radiohead made in between OK Computer and Kid A. A ton of the atmospheres are the same, that damn computer voice is there, and things are oppressively bleak, although somehow not the kind of oppressive bleakness that I enjoy. Maybe some day I'll try to explain that that previous sentence means.

One thing this album did for me is remind me that I hate Beck. Everything he's done except for Sea Change, I hate. So when his warbling and yelping comes in on "The Vagabond," I was ready to turn it off, make up that the rest of the album was 'decent but lacking,' and go about my business. But I fought through, and there was some good stuff in there, like the directionless but pretty "Radian" and the sublime closer, "Caramel Prisoner."

I wonder if there's a Pinkerton-esque cult around 10 000 Hz Legend, because at first, both provide pretty grating listening experiences. I guess it's hard to call an album of gentle ambient music 'grating,' but a handful of elements here somehow manage to become abrasive without pushing anything into the red. The contrast between the over-tinkering and the potential greatness is perhaps most evident on "How Does It Make You Feel?" a track dominated by vocoder, only to be interrupted by stellar, unprocessed, harmony vocals. I suppose when a genre is called 'electronica' it's an idiot move to crave more humanity on the records, but that's really what makes albums like Talkie Walkie and Moon Safari special - it's always clear that there's men behind the machines, not just something seemingly created synthetically in a vacuum. I guess some could find a robotic, cold appeal to this, but it's not for me.

There really are some gems here, and I don't consider the album to be rubbish, but it's clear the band knew they needed to get back to more comfortable roads, as Talkie Walkie preserves the instrumentation of these first two records, but all additional elements and vocals are put more in focus and handled with a little more care. But as it is, 10 000 Hz Legend is an interesting document of a band trying to put out a few ripples to see if it would take.

"How Does It Make You Feel?"