Nicolas Godin is one half of genre-defining French electronic duo Air.
Their 1998 record ‘Moon Safari’ captivated international airwaves with '60s bass tones and downtempo analog grooves, defying the house music status quo by opening the doors to a new wave of popular electronic music.Now with a career spanning 25 years, true renaissance man Nicolas is set to release his latest solo album, ‘Concrete And Glass’.
“Kirin J. Callinan is a character. He’s very opposite to me. . . for some reason we get along very well.” - Nicolas Godin
Internationally acclaimed artists including Tame Impala cite Air as a primary influence. Among them are two of Godin’s recent collaborators, Mac DeMarco and Kirin J. Callinan. “I’m really honoured that a lot of people say that the records I made were really important for them.
“I never heard many of them that sound like Air though – I think we’re kind of unique in one way, because the music we did was like walking on a thin line, a balanced thing, very hard to get.
“A lot of artists that I like are the same. Tame Impala. . . not a lot of bands sound like that. When you achieve that, you’ve reached your goal. Create something new. You listen to Tame for three seconds and you hear that it’s him. Each artist wants to achieve that.”
With Air, multi-instrumentalist Nicolas sculpted (alongside Jean-Benoît Dunckel) a meticulously sophisticated sound, chiselled upon the same foundations he studied in his architecture degree. This practice extends by no short measure to his solo work, which can be characterised by smooth tapestries of vintage synthesisers, vocoders, and exotically spacious ambience.
His latest single ‘The Foundation’, featuring Cola Boyy, is a funky, sexily-clanging bop, complete with wah-wah bass and a dreamy, oriental atmosphere.
On his own sonic philosophy, Nicolas remarks: “Space is designed by two walls, and the walls don’t mean anything. That’s the secret of music – the space between two notes, is the space between two walls.”
His highly celebrated and critically admired discography has featured a number of outstanding collaborators; from director Sophia Coppola for ‘The Virgin Suicides’ soundtrack, to Beck on the Air record '10,000Hz Legend’, to Radiohead, Warpaint and Charlotte Gainsbourg producer, Nigel Godrich.
On ‘Concrete And Glass’ track ‘Time On My Hands’, Nicolas worked with Kirin J. Callinan at Mac DeMarco’s home studio. “Kirin wanted to work at Mac’s studio. He was very generous [Mac]. He let us use his studio, and we worked for three days.
“Kirin is a character. He’s very opposite to me. . . for some reason we get along very well. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t get along with Kirin. . . when he plays and sings, he doesn’t have any ego, 100 per cent. Really crazy.
“The key of the success and freshness of the album was to work with singers of opposite backgrounds. I didn’t want to work with people close to me, in my generation of artists.”
Always one to push the boundaries of creativity, Nicolas has consistently striven to challenge and expand his approach to recording and songwriting.
His first full-length solo album, ‘Contrepoint’, sought to breathe new life into the musical devices of Bach, applying the master’s influence to jazz and electronic instrumentation.
For ‘Concrete And Glass’, Nicolas embraced the legacy generated by his own body of work incorporating sonic elements of Air’s previous albums and expanding upon his own angularly expansive, architectural viewpoint.
On ‘Turn Right, Turn Left’, he integrates elegantly French orchestral textures and drifting chord progressions with deep thumping bass and psychedelic synth oscillations. Album closer ‘Cité Radieuse’ features lilting neoclassical arpeggiators met by slinking upright bass and reverberant jazz saxophone, reminiscent of his debut ‘Contrepoint’.
“It’s funny, because when I was doing music with Air, I was trying to do something different all the time.
“For some reason, maybe because I’m ageing, I accepted my legacy in a way. But I didn’t want something pretentious. . . It’s very strange.
“I wanted to go into modern sound design and modern technology, but I was not scared of turning my face to the past, the things I’d done – the key elements of modern and past.”
