No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 34: Air - Talkie Walkie

Episode Date: April 20, 2019

​After a month of headbanging and raging with Korn and Static X, we take a breather and relax with the loungy, space rock synth vibes of Air's 2004 release ​Talkie Walkie​. The French duo somehow manage to cultivate a sound that is both retro & futuristic, with the use of vintage synth keys, guitar pedals, and vocoders. ​​With help from Nigel Godrich (see also: Radiohead, Beck) Talkie Walkie ​is a wonderfully warm & intimate, "elegantly moody soundtrack for imaginary films". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin. Got my brother Travis with me as always. And we're going to cover some air today. I'm going to get back into the electronic music zone after some couple weeks. of some screaming, dude. I'm ready.

Yeah, I mean, this is going to be another 180. Yeah, we covered corn a couple weeks back, and then we did a little sidetrack on another band in that vein, Static X last week. And it's been a while since we covered a band's like air. I mean, they definitely fall under the, like, electronic. I mean, I would put them in maybe the down tempo category as well. I've read a few reviews that refer to them as space rock, chill wave kind of stuff. I don't know if I would ever consider them to be a rock group, though.

That's interesting that they get space rock. So I think the reason they get thrown into that category is because on all of their albums, they are playing actual instruments. maybe they're synthesizers, you know, but they have guitars thrown in the mix in a lot of their songs, you know, but everything that you're hearing, they're actually playing. Okay, okay, that's cool. I mean, that does, you know, I think that's super, like, super important with an electronic artist if they are, you know, bringing their own instrumentation into the mix.

I feel like that always makes it more, like, authentic, you know. Yeah, there's no sampled, there's no samples in any of their songs. Yeah. So when did you first get into air, Travis? Or would you ever say that you got into them? No, I never really got into them. But I would say I probably first heard them on a Pandora station, you know, probably like, you know, my Tosca Pandora Station probably had them on there. And I think, of course, I heard alone in Kyoto on Lost in Translation, which we talked about last week that if you've seen that movie, then you have heard an air song.

You just may not have realized it. Yes. Lost in Translation was a movie by Sophia Coppola. I don't know if that's how you say it. Coppola? Coppola, man, maybe. Yeah. But she also did a movie called The Virgin Suicides, which Air did the entire soundtrack for that album. So, and then they popped up again just, just one song in Lost in Translation, Alone in Kyoto, which pops up on the album that we're covering today, which is their third studio album, Talkie Waki.

So there is two dudes, two French dudes. They are Nicholas Godin and Jean Binois Dunkel. God, I'm not going to say his full name from now on. I'm just going to refer to him as J.B. J.B. and Nicholas. Nikola. But yeah, they have been working together. since the 90s, the mid-90s.

They formed in 95. Their debut album came out in 98. It was called Moon Safari. And one thing that's interesting about that album, and we're going to cover a couple songs from there, is the way that they went about recording it. So they didn't have that much money at the time. So they bought, you know, the most affordable instruments that they, that were available to them, which were analog synthesizers from the 70s.

So, you know, from that came this really unique sound, you know, almost like a, it ends up in the long run being kind of like the brand of their sound. But that was by default because they just didn't have money. to buy fancy things. And they also used an eight-track recorder to record all the songs on Moon Safari. So they were limited in the number of tracks that they could do per recording. They only had eight tracks per recording, you know? So somehow through this limitation, they were able to make these really, like, lush and, like,

expansive kind of soundscapes and their songs. and I'm going to play a couple songs, like I said, from Moon Safari just to kind of show off, you know, what it was that they were able to bring to the table even back then in the late 90s. So one thing that is interesting too, they would plug their keyboards into guitar pedals for their effects, particularly distilled. dorsion pedals and flanders, which also kind of made this really unique kind of vibe with the keys in their songs. So I'm going to play the first track on Moon Safari. It is called La Femme d'Argant. And yeah, we'll kind of get a good little taste of that, you know, guitar pedal sounding distorted.

keyboards. Yeah, you can definitely hear the, those, those instruments from the 70s, you know? Yeah, dude. Like, it sounds like a 70s, like, kind of jazzy, loungy kind of thing, you know? Yeah, super loungy. Another thing I just read just now, um, apparently that bass, that bass guitar was borrowed. It's a 60s Hoffner, which is the same bass that McCartney used. to play. And that's Nicholas playing the bass on that. Nice. So.

So yeah, that's also kind of an important, like thing to bring up. It's like, like you said earlier, like that is them playing the base. It's not a sampled bass. Yeah. Yep. So that's cool. Yeah. And it's also cool that that that sound, you know, that song, it's only eight tracks, right?

Max. Yeah. And, you know, and they were able to just just. create this really lush, you know, space, you know. I love it. And I'm going to play one other song from Moon Safari before we dive into Takiwaki. This was one of their singles for the album. I don't know if you've heard this song, dude. It's called Sexy Boy. Can't say that I have. But this, it's great, man. So this song showcases, Another thing about air that, so I don't, I haven't really kept up with them too far past Taki walkie,

but one thing especially that jumps out in Takiwaki is the sound of their vocals. And it is just them featured on at least Takiwaki. They have a few guest vocalists on Moon Safari, but they use these vocoders. to make this almost like, it's like a soft robotic voice. And they, they pull this off by singing softly into the vocoder, like almost like whispery. And it makes this almost like, like, androgynous, you know, it's like robotic, like you can almost can't tell if it's a guy or a girl singing. It's really great.

And so, again, before we dive into talkie-walky, I'm going to play just a little bit of track two on Moon Safari. It's called Sexy Boy. You know, I lied that. I actually have heard that song. It's my alarm clock every morning. Are you serious? No, dude.

Come on. I was making a joke. I was trying to make a joke. Like, that's how I pump myself up every morning, you know? That's great. But, no, I mean, I would say that the effects that they have on their voice makes it sound more feminine, I'd say, than masculine. But that's interesting that they made that decision to do that.

Because they do that for almost all of their songs, right? So I don't see, again, I don't know because, like, again, I haven't really kept up with these guys. But in Taki-Walki, every voice that you hear is them. And, you know, you say it kind of has, it sounds more feminine. When we dive into Takiwakey, I feel like it is kind of more androgynous and more robotic. So in between Moon Safari and Takiwalkiwaki, they came out with an album called 10,000 Hertz Legend. It came out in 2001. And it was kind of a flop.

Fans of theirs didn't really like it. and I can see why I listen to a few songs from it. And I kind of went like track by track. And it's kind of just all over the place. It's a lot more experimental, you know? And, you know, we talk about this all the time. People don't like change, you know, fans don't like change. And I feel like that's probably the main reason why a lot of people didn't really like this album.

It was, again, more experimental. it was kind of random from track to track. You know, like it didn't feel like, you know, one solid piece or, you know, like one solid vibe, which for me, that's what I want in an album, you know, and that's, you know, like with people like us who like to listen to a song, listen to an album all the way through, that's what I want, you know. So it was kind of a dud. So that brings us to Takiwaki.

So again, this is their third album. It came out in 2004. And they kind of returned to their, you know, retro vibes. Those retro synth roots. And, man, dude, this album just all the way through. This is a no-filler album, I think. Did you listen to it all the way through? getting pumped for this episode?

I did not. I listened to some of the tracks, but not all of them. Cool. Well, the first song that played us in for our intro was one of the singles of the album. It's called Surfing on a Rocket. And so with this album, they recorded it all themselves and their home studio using Pro Tools. but guess who they brought along to help out in this studio. I do know the answer to this question.

Well, all right, it's because I was so excited when I found out this. I texted you immediately. Nigel Godrick is a producer for this album, aka the dude that does all the stuff for Radiohead, the George Martin of Radiohead. We've talked about him so many times on this podcast. You know, we covered Radiohead's first, what, five albums? No, first four.

First four. And then we, first, we covered Radiohead's first four albums. Okay, let's just clarify. We didn't, it wasn't the first four because we were we started on OK computer. Oh, okay, my bad. And went through to in rainbows. To end rainbows. Okay.

And then we covered Beck's C-Change shortly after that. So when you look at, you know, Wikipedia, when you read about it, it says producers, Air, comma, Nigel. So they had a lot to do with the sound. But Nigel

was a big part of it. Another thing that you hear in this album is quite a few string arrangements. This is by a composer, writer, his name's Michel Colombier. That's the best I can do.

It sounded French, right? Sure. Michel Colombier. Yeah. And that's something that I think really brings a lot to the vibe of this album. So what I like about this album, and this is going to be another song-heavy episode, we're not going to dive too much into, you know, the facts behind these recordings or anything. I couldn't really find too much information on the album, like the recording process or anything like that.

But this is one of those albums that, you know, you push play on track one, and it just kind of takes you into this space, you know, the vibes are strong throughout the whole album. It's very, you know, it just sets you in this, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Like, it's got a strong vibe, you know, and it keeps you there the whole time. Yeah, like you said, you know, with these vintage instruments that they use and, you know, their unique vocal effects and stuff. Like they have this very like definitive like sound, you know?

And so yeah. Yeah, you get that, you get that vibe straight from track one. They don't, it's pretty like consistent, like feeling, you know? Yeah. Yeah, this is one of my favorite albums, man. And so just by chance, I'm going to be playing songs that are back to back. So I got three songs lined up for us, and they're going to be, you know, back to back as you would hear them on the record. So the first one is going to be track three on the album.

And this is one of my favorite songs. It's up there for me just in general, dude, for favorite songs. It has that great, you know, vocoder voice of theirs that they throw in their songs. So this is a song called Run. Man, that's one of those songs, too. It just gives me chills every time I listen to it. Yeah, definitely a song that's enhanced by a good pair of headphones, which I think it's true for a lot of this album.

I think that's one of the reasons I first thought to myself when I was listening to it. Like, man, this is kind of like it, it's got the same like production. I mean, it's Nigel Godrick, right? but it's got the same production value to me as like a Kings of Convenience album, you know? Yeah. I know that's a random weird connection, but I think we did talk about like they kind of seem like the Kings of Convenience of like this genre of electronic music, you know? I don't know why I say that because it's not like it sounds like a Kings of Convenience song, you know? Nothing about that sound of like Kings of Convenience, but I don't know.

Maybe it's the softer. I mean, there are some some. some orchestral moments and like more soft moments in these songs. You know, so maybe that's why. Well, I mean, you know, now that you say that, looking at these lyrics for run, they're quite, kings of conveniency. You know, he's singing about this girl that he's, you know, head over heels for. And he just wants her to stay in bed with him and not leave, which is, you know,

If you want to know more about Kings of Convenience, they're this Norwegian duo. They're kind of in the Simon and Garfunkel vein. We covered a couple of their albums. And yeah, it's all about, like, lusting and heartbreak and all that stuff. Really pretty acoustic stuff. But, dude, so what gets me in this song, man, is, you know, so the song is called Run. And in a couple parts in this song, or at least in that part that we played after the second verse,

he says, stay in bed. I feel sad when you run. And then it says run. And then it just repeats the word run over and over and over and over and over. And then that like swelling kind of like, it's like it's a synthesized like choir sound, you know, it just kind of envelops you. Yeah. Oh, it's just so good.

Yeah, that's good. I love it. I love it. So, um, I, again, we don't, I don't have that much information. I, I did a lot of research on this, um, but I couldn't really find too much on, uh, you know, their, their process or anything. I do know that, that they go instrument by instrument in the studio, you know, so it's, it's, it's, I guess track by track. So they're, so they lay it down each instrument like separately. Each instrument,

yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, like you said, it really is. just them too, right? They don't bring any other musicians into the into the mix or what? It's just them, man. So that's, I guess that's why. No, well, okay, no. Go ahead. I take that back, dude.

It's, I say it's just them. A lot of articles that I, that I read were on moon safari. Just because I found more good information on like their kind of their style and their process, specifically covering moon safari. and again, they kind of go back to their roots, quote unquote, for talky-walky. But yeah, no, there's, and the credits for this album, there are, you know, a handful of people that come in to play bass, a person that pops in and plays flute. I mean, I guess my thinking was that, oh, they do each instrument individually because

there's only two of them, but if that's not the case, then. Yeah. But no, for the most part, it's just them. And, you know, Nigel just, you know, put his signature, I mean, whatever the hell he does. I don't know how he does it. But, you know, like, there's just something about Nigel Godrick produced album where it's just so, it's just right there. Like when you listen to it in headphones. Yeah.

I mean, all of the radio head stuff, it all sounds, you know, gorgeous, right? And, like, really well produced and whatnot. That's probably mostly Nigel. I mean, that's clear now that we've covered. Now that we've, now that we've listened to other Nigel Godrick albums other than Radiohead albums, it's fair to say that he has something to do with it, you know. You can't give all the credit to Tom or Johnny, you know. Right.

And like when you think about Beck's album C change that we covered, like it just something like, I mean, it could have been a totally different vibe if it was produced by someone else. But that album, you know, being that that breakup album that's, it's just got that like, vulnerable raw sound. So let's jump ahead. We're going to go to the next track. This is another great one. And you had mentioned we were texting back and forth throughout the week.

You're like, man, this song is just great with a pair of headphones. So this is track four. So again, the next song on the album. This song is called Universal Traveler. So cute, obviously. this is what made me think that they that they sound like kings of convenience because that actually does sound like

it sounds a little bit like Airland Oia, right? The way that he sings that kind of really soft delivery. Yeah, the higher pitch vocals, male vocals, yeah. The acoustic guitar or the classical guitar. Yeah, that finger picking.

I think it's an acoustic. Yeah, but that yeah, it's like, I think what's cool about air is how they blend that kind of folk-pop guitar styles into into their electronic music, which is, of course, what Kings of Convenience and all those bands from the quietest, the new loud era that we talked about. Yeah. So like, yeah, that's cool.

And this is the same. Which is this era, dude. This is right smack dab in the middle of that 2004. Well, there you go. So this is the electronic side of that genre, you know. Yeah. And it's cool because, I mean, you know, electronic, yeah, but, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

singer-songwriter vibes with synthesizers, right? Like, what else? It's electronic, but still very, it has that analog, yeah, acoustic vibe. Right. I think, I think, yeah, I feel like the, it's, it doesn't, you know, you could be, you know, easily mistaken for thinking that this is not an electronic song, quote, unquote, because of the guitar and the voice and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, really awesome song, man. Yeah, and I got another clip from this one, and this is when it kind of jumps into the effects

and more synthesizer vibes. Some cool things that happen a little bit later on. So here is clip two from Universal Traveler. Yeah, I just love that, man. I love how they take the melody that the acoustic guitar plays and throws it through like a sampler or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it tweaks it a little bit and makes it kind of bend and do these different things. You know, I like it.

I love it a lot. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I was going to talk about. That's the only reason I played that clip, dude. I just love that part. Yeah, that's great. And so, yeah, and that's how the song ends. And that brings us to a super,

awesome instrumental track for the next one here, which is another cool thing about an air album, you know, like it's equal parts, vocal heavy, and instrumental. And this is one of my favorites on the album. It's called Mike Mills. It's such a gorgeous song, man. And again, with the acoustic guitar and the piano, you know. Yeah. Yes. The only thing that wasn't an acoustic instrument in that recording was the drumbeat, which was just a super simple, like almost a click track kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. And that's not to say that, I'm sure that piano was just a synthesizer, you know, I don't know if that was a actual, like, upright piano or something.

Right. But I really love that, like, cascading piano line that just kind of, it just seems to just continue forever, you know? Yeah. And it just brings you, brings you back to that, like, more subtle. It like takes you back to that acoustic guitar line with the click track. So I mentioned string a ring. Did you see who Mike Mills is?

No, who is that? Mike Mills is the name of a music video director who did the videos for some of their stuff on Moon Safari. Oh, cool. So you did the music video for. You did the music video for sexy boy. Nice. So there you go. Who knows why this song is named after him specifically, but it could just be, I mean, it's a cool sounding name, you know.

So there's some alliteration in there, Mike Mills. Yeah, I like it. There you go. So earlier on I mentioned string arrangements in this album by composer Michel Colombier. and the second clip from this album, from this song, really showcases what he brings to the table. So here is clip two. It really tugs on the heartstrings, huh?

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you just don't. So tell me, do you know about, like, who, like, did they arrange this as well? And did they play the instruments? I mean, they had to have brought in, they had to have brought in, like, a quartet or something. Well, they're not accredited. it is. But again, it was Michel Colombier, his arrangements. And I feel like I should mention. So this guy, Michelle, he, for the most part, is known for his film scores. He did dozens of scores for films dating back to 68. So I don't know too many of them. Is it mostly French films?

there's quite a few that are but let's just say looking through the list here the ones that I noted that I recognize starts in 94 with Major League 2 whoa okay that's not anywhere close to what I would have guessed he also did how Stella got her groove back okay I don't know man but anyways I think it's worth mentioning he he actually passed away in 2004, the same year that this album came out. So this may have been one of the last things that he's featured on. He died in November of that year. That's significant.

Yeah. So really pretty stuff. I want to quote a guy Rob Sheffield, who writes for Rolling Stone. He reviewed this album back when it came out. And I like what he says here. This album is elegantly moody soundtrack music for imaginary films

Yeah, I like that's good I like that And of course, real films too Since as we mentioned It's been featured in movies But yeah, I get the idea that Especially with the cinematic Or not cinematic but like the orchestral stuff that comes in

You know Yeah Especially if it's it was You know arranged by somebody who does film music you know yeah yeah so we're kind of whizzing through this here man that's gonna be a short episode so i'm gonna throw in one other song how about that um okay this is what happens when we cut out what you heard yeah i wasn't even going to mention it dude but yeah we decided to kind of scrap the what you heard segment of our episodes where we kind of share music we've been listening to lately

and just we're we're just going to start diving right into it i think overall it's a positive thing man because i mean yeah obviously our episodes are going to be shorter but that's not necessarily a bad thing you know no you're right you know let's just get straight to the meat of the of the episode you know for sure and i think i don't know if this ever if this was on a episode that didn't go out or something like that but we had mentioned that like you know if we continue to do our year-end episodes where we kind of bring music that we liked from that year, you know, to the table and we both kind of share what we liked. That's kind of the same.

You know, that'll fill that, that, the same role that what you heard did, you know, so. Yeah, very true. So anyway. All right, so we're going to skip over surfing on a rocket because that was a single and we played a little bit of it to intro us in. And we're going to play a little bit from track seven on the album. this one is a little bit it's a kind of different change up

in like the vibes in the fields this one's a little moody and a little bit more dark Oh I like dark Yeah this one's called Another Day Yeah I feel like the beginning of that song

Like you could just put that Slap that on the beginning of some like True Crime documentary or something like that You know CSI whatever the hell you know Yeah I love that song. I played a pretty lengthy clip.

I mean, I pretty much played the whole song, but I wanted to get to the part at the very end there before I faded it out. I kind of like that kind of pause that they do before they go back into that little chorus bit. Because I feel like I don't know whose idea this was, maybe Nigels, but I like how they had that pause there because the line there is you lost in space, in time. Like you're lost in space and time. And with that loss, you know, they kind of like,

they kind of have that fade out and like pause before the little chorus bit. You will lose it anyway. It's just another day. You'll lose it anyway. Anyways. Yeah, another great song, man. Yeah. I mean, I think the moody songs for,

soundtracks that that never came out is pretty pretty accurate elegantly moody elegantly moody yeah soundtrack music for imaginary films yeah yeah so i don't have too much else man um it's a little quick and dirty episode on air um yeah that's this is one of my favorites from theirs um if you liked this album definitely check out their first debut, their debut album, Moonsafar. It's in this vein for sure. Yeah, I think we're going to kind of pull, maybe you could call it another 180 for our next full-length episode. We're finally going to cover the strokes, my dude.

Man. It's about fucking time. Yeah. Talk about like for us, like, seminal bands in our, in our lives, you know? absolutely man they had such a huge influence on like my clothing style my fucking haircut right right um my style of drumming you know everything absolutely i say so we were kind of on the fence a little bit for what album to cover of theirs we were either going to do their first album is this it or jump to their second album room on fire i say recover is this

sit first because we can always come back to the strokes later on and cover room on fire. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, if there's a band that deserves multiple episodes or at least the first two albums, I think it's definitely strokes, you know. For sure, yeah. And the two albums do sound pretty, pretty different, but definitely like stepping stones, you know what I mean? And then things start to get different.

I feel like the first three albums were really pretty chronological, you know. Yeah, I think so, too. And man, were they different, man, all three of those albums were different. What was their last one called? Not their last one. What was their third one was? First impressions of Earth. Yeah, I like that one too, man.

Yeah, there's some good stuff on there. So in between that episode on The Strix, we're going to have a sidetrack for air. I think I'm just going to dig into some more French electronic artists from around that time find something to listen to. We're going to fade us out with another single from Takiwaki, which is a song I absolutely love called Alpha Beta Gaga. It's got this really cool like whistle melody. It's one of those melodies that is, and you'll hear it, it is never ending, you know, like you can like it, it picks back up exactly like right back to the beginning. of the melody. It'll make sense when you hear it. It's a great song. But it was a single, so we couldn't

dive into it too much here. So thank you, as always for listening. Hop on to our website, no-filler podcast.com. There we've got show notes. A lot of times we'll play or we'll post music videos. We'll have all of our links to all of the articles that we pull all our information from. There's lots of good information that you can find if you want to dig a little bit deeper into these artists and albums. And you can stream us directly from SoundCloud or any other podcast app we should be there. And yeah, until next week, thanks again, as always, for listening. My name is Quentin. My name is Travis.

It was the night before the gathering and all through the house. The host rapid cozy cashmere throw from HomeSense for their spouse, kids' toys for $699 under the tree, and crystal glasses for just $14.99 for their brother Lee, a baking dish made in Portugal for Tom and Sue, and a nice $599 candle, perfectly priced just for you. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good price. Home Sense, endless presents, perfectly priced.