Air, that most prototypically French of French bands which defies category (downtempo schmaltz? Rhodes rock? vocoder ballads? synthpop a la mode?) have returned with a new album and a whole lot of new attitude. Moon Safari, their wildly vivid 1998 full-length debut, contained a boatload of lovely Bacharach esque reasons for millions of people worldwide to fall in love with the little French duo (Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin) that could.

But for all those reasons, there was an itch waiting to be scratched, and the first layers of tissue were exposed with 1999's score to The Virgin Suicides, an interstellar journey of the heart which was about as pop as a case of flat diet root beer. The groove-based mellow vibes were absent, but for a movie score the offense was forgivable. Now, with the joshingly-titled 10,000 Hertz Legend(the inside joke I've read is not appropriate for a family publication), there is a brand new Air, with money in pockets and new family responsibilities to uphold (both are in long-term relationships and have become fathers since the release of their first album). With the whole romantic music-loving world gasping with anticipation, where does this new album, which features urban folkie Beck and an actual choir, leave the pair?

Well, Dunckel and Godin are fine it seems, but the romantic world might be a little confused. 10,000 Hz Legend is a darkly humorous collection of dreamy space-rock featuring a number of perplexing stylistic leaps and very little of the starry-eyed amour that endeared Moon Safari to so many. Not to fear, the new album is extremely listenable, but the desire for separation for Air seems quite apparent from the start. "Electronic Performers" is a heavily digitized commentary on the robotic nature of the artists' scene today. From the Radiohead-meets-Roger Troutman computer funk of "How Does it Make You Feel" to the Lee Hazelwood-inspired "Wonder Milky Bitch" and the ethereal "Radian," there is a lot to love about 10,000 Hz Legend, just don't go looking for another "Sexy Boy." Only "Radio #1" solidly identifies with the bounciness of Moon Safari, and that song is quite obviously a joke, probably one Air are playing on themselves. The new album is notable for its frankness and maturity, as the whippersnappers we fell in love with a few short years agro have suddenly slid into late young adulthood, depending on the occasional foray into baseness to keep that fire burning-a little more smut in the pillow talk to reignite the passion. This is an album that will cause considerable dissent among fans of Air and French music (those people just keep popping up everywhere lately it seems), and that can only be a good thing-statis is so very not chic.

Jean-Benoit Dunckel, the half of Air which did not just very recently sire a child, was gracious enough to fit 9x into his busy round of press, and via phone from France, we chatted briefly about studio time, crossing the desert, and soft porn.

9x:The new album (10,000 Hz Legend) sounds different from Moon Safari, but it's not that different to me from The Virgin Suicides soundtrack. Can you relate the differences and the similarities between the new record and the two previous ones?
J-B:I think that when we did Moon Safari, we were naive teenagers. We were not confident with ourselves and we had no equipment. But now we are more ambitious, we are more extreme, we are more men, we are more strong, but maybe more stupid in one way, less pure. But we are more extreme. This album is ambitious because when we started to record this album we wanted to escape from our style and from the 70s retro-futuristic aspect of Air. We wanted to experiment more with digital and new modern machines. Also, we wanted to use big orchestras and big choirs to increase this stereo-panoramic sound that goes very well with our style. And so, we have decided to do non-formatted tracks. We didn't care about the direction of anything. We didn't care about the radio or anything. We said that the best that we could do was the best for our career. So, we just considered the message and the style. We wanted to focus on the emotion. We wanted to focus on a sort of psychedelic aspect of the message. But we have tried to avoid the trap of doing something very complicated with tons of instruments and I think we have reached to do something accessible, I think. It's not very dissonant. The music is not oui oui aggressive. The music is surprising sometimes. The music is a little bit strong and cold at the same time, but not inaccessible I think. And for the first time we just wanted to use English because we feel more and more confident by using English sentences. We know we are not good enough to come grammatically correct sometimes. And we play with that-we play with our accents, we play with the fact that when we speak English we can feel that the sentences are not correct sometimes. We wanted to express a sort of psychedelic sense. We stayed like one year in the studio, we became a little bit mad in the studio. We wanted to feel the fever of creation, when the magic moment at night is coming, you know that you are recording something which expresses yourself and that is what we wanted to do-to express ourselves. And to be the more emotional that we could be.

9x:So you spent a year working on this record?
J-B:Yes, over the process of making this record was one year. But the recording in Paris was about seven months and we spent one week in Los Angeles to record what we wanted to record, like the choirs, the strings, harp, Beck. He's on the record. And so on the album you have the two concepts: the home studio concept, because we stayed seven months in Paris in a cheap studio, and we did some acoustic and electronic recordings. We wanted to go as far as we could with our mission and we recorded everything. Most of the work was recorded in Paris and we went to Los Angeles one week to cancel some of the vocals and replacing them by good ones.

9x: So do you find the recording process enjoyable?
J-B:Yes!

9x:I know some bands can find it a bit tedious.
J-B: Oh. We are in love with the musical process. When you are in the studio, you feel secure, you feel like you are inside of the mother. You are creating something-we like that, that is very impressive.

9x: Would you ever consider working with outside producers in the future?
J-B: Maybe, but I feel that we are our own producers and I think that we, in terms of production, we are so difficult and I don't want to fight with anybody. We can spend a lot of time on little details, so sometimes it would be very boring for other people.

9x: Whenever the industry gets to a critical point though, it seems to adjust itself, like when punk rock hit in the late 70s.
J-B: Maybe, but I feel that we are our own producers and I think that we, in terms of production, we are so difficult and I don't want to fight with anybody. We can spend a lot of time on little details, so sometimes it would be very boring for other people.

9x:How did The Virgin Suicides thing come about? Did you see the movie beforehand?
J-B: Yes, we were in Los Angeles. I don't know what we were doing in Los Angeles, I think we were doing a video for "All I Need." We met Sofia Coppola at some Hollywood studios and we liked the aesthetic of the movie and we liked the way she was using pictures. We liked the colors and the style. And we were seeing in the picture this lovely multi-emotional idea, because she melds love and suicide at the same time. It was light pink and dark. Very different because you have love and sex aspect with the trashy teenage aspect of suicide. We felt in terms of music it was a good direction to go. I think that maybe Sofia turned her movie into a more Hollywood movie at the end, it was a little bit very nice. In the previews, you had some drug scenes and trash sex scenes too. The book is sometimes very trashy, and we liked this aspect a lot.

9x: Do you see yourself doing other soundtrack work in the future?
J-B: Oh yes we would like to.

9x: Do you look forward to going back out on the road next month and touring?
J-B: Yes, we are glad. We want to cross the desert again.

9x: How many people do you need in the band?
J-B: We are five.

9x: Are there any places in particular that you look forward to going to when you're on tour?
J-B: I would like to not be in the middle of the desert and I want to feel the nature.

9x: There are more lyrics on this record than on Moon Safari. Do you feel more confident with your writing?
J-B: Yes.

9x: Do you feel the lyrics are very important in the overall picture of the record or are the music and the sound more important? J-B: I think that it's more important for Air, but since the beginning, we have had some messages to tell to the people. The force of "Sexy Boy" was the message in it, where we were talking about this very real subject, which was the male seduction. We talk about the male seduction, and so it was sometimes a bit aggressive, but we had some messages, but nice messages. We are not as pretentious to pretend to change anything in the world. We just make jokes. "Radio #1" is just a big joke about international karaoke airplay now in the world. At the end of "How Does it Make You Feel" you have this big joke about stopping smoking. "People in the City" is just a comment about what happens in a country. Everything is not serious.

9x: Do you have any idea about the direction of the next record? Have you thought about this at all?
J-B: Yes, we have a very precise idea but we can't tell because I don't know if we will wish to follow it.

9x: I think I read somewhere that you said that Moon Safari was romantic but 10,000 Hz Legend was pornographic. Is that correct?
J-B: Yes, but it is a very soft porno. It's art. Some of the lyrics are aggressive because we use some very slang words, but it is just to tell how much we are in love with somebody. If we said to a girl, "You are such my wonder milky bitch," we use the word "bitch" because it increases the love feeling. It's not to be violent when you make love to the girl. It is to confess the violence of the love that you feel for her. We are not trying to trash things, just to do something catchy and emotional.

9x: Do you feel that pop music is uncreative when addressing the sexual aspects of romance?
J-B: It depends. I think the real romance is when you don't want to be romantic, just when you confess into your music.