hroughout their seven albums, from 1998's breakthrough album Moon Safari to 2012's Le Voyage dans la lune, Air have been a constant mix of thrilling dualities: a French retro-futurist duo inspired by both psychedelic rock and Serge Gainsbourg, who, despite their preppy, bookish air of young math professors, had impossibly cool and talented friends with whom they could collaborate, such as Mike Mills, Sofia Coppola (for whom they created The Virgin Suicides soundtrack), Phoenix’s Thomas Mars, and Beck.
The duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel have been on hiatus since Le Voyage, with Godin recently reflecting: “I observed that music was taking up only a small part of my daily life, and every day on tour was the same.” After some much-needed R&R, a newly invigorated Godin returns with his anticipated debut album Contrepoint, from which the elegiac “Widerstehe doch der Sünde” (Stay Away from Sin) is taken.
Directed by The Sacred Egg and produced by Riff Raff Films, the cinematic and darkly playful video sees three happy-go-lucky undead surfers (South African pros Michael February, Simone Robb and Matthew Moir) enjoying a day spent carving 30-foot waves, partying on the beach, and paddling among the sharks – which might provide some small clue as to how they ended up in surfer purgatory in the first place.
