Be Friends [Audio CD] Darkel

What happens when you take half the French electro-pop band Air? Pretty much half the music. Darkel is the alter-ego of Jean-Benoit Dunckel, who along with Nicholas Godin makes up Air. Even without Godin, Dunckel makes a sound familiar to Air surfers, with lots of analog synthesizers, icy strings, and fuzzy Moog bass lines. You also get a lot more vocals and a lot less of the perfumed atmosphere that makes Air so attractive, even in the midst of their most banal songs. As a singer, Dunckel sounds like he's listened to a bit too much Kraftwerk, with his French-accented English; breathy, reed-thin tone; and a vicious lisp. The difference is Kraftwerk only used lyrics as a hook in their otherwise mechanistic electronic trance. Dunckel, however, is trying to write real pop songs in the vein of Soft Cell and Depeche Mode. His electro-themes are embellished by a bit of punk aggression on "TV Destroy," and a distinct whiff of '60s psychedelic pop emerges on the "Lady Madonna" piano vamp of "My Own Sun." Air's lyrics have never been profound, but they are usually lifted by seductive melodies and singers like Beth Hirsh, or extensive processing on their own voices. Hopefully, a remix album sans vocals is around the corner. Darkel/Dunckel leaves us a glimpse of what that might sound like with the album's intoxicating instrumental closer, "Bathroom Spirit." The oblique title fronts an ethereal track mixing Muzak kitsch with spacey ambiences. There's little doubt that without the Air pedigree, Darkel would remain in the dark. --John Diliberto