Rollingstone

Like so many other pop wizards, Air take their favorite David Bowie disguise and build a whole new sound out of it. The French electronica duo always sounds as if it's lost in erotic space, floating in the blue with Major Tom, combining the soppy balladry of Hunky Dory with the whooshing electronic haze of Low. Air's music is charged up with regret and longing -- too much for the Earth to satisfy -- and so they take off into the ozone. Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit "JB" Dunckel are blessed with a light touch, a playful spirit and a gaudy sense of melancholy. Back in 1998, when everyone was still flogging the dead drum-and-bass horse, Air's debut, Moon Safari, drew on Brian Wilson, Serge Gainsbourg, Francis Lai and other Sixties nut-case visionaries, mixing up cocktail-lounge beats, lush Seventies keyboards, strings, horns and sad piano. In "Ce Matin La," they even made a tuba solo sound cool.

Air stumbled with their follow-up, 2001's harsh, humorless 10,000 Hz Legend. But on their excellent new Talkie Walkie, Air return to what they do best: elegantly moody soundtrack music for imaginary films. Indeed, the closing instrumental, "Alone in Kyoto," has already made a memorable appearance in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. Talkie Walkie is basically the musical equivalent of Lost in Translation -- it's a slow-motion romance where nothing much happens, but even the quiet moments here can send out emotional ripples that seem to go on forever.

Talkie Walkie is rich, somber headphone pop, and Air sound more than ever like two lonely spaceboys out on their own. Surprisingly, Air worked with a real rock producer this time. Nigel Godrich, the man behind Radiohead's OK Computer and Beck's Mutations, helps build the spacious grandeur of the music. "Run" blends horror-movie organ with glitch techno, and "Biological" weaves an electric-guitar riff through whizzing synth effects and video-game noises. In the fabulous Ziggy Stardust-style slow jam "Another Day," Dunckel sings about how falling out of love feels like drifting alone in space.

The piece de resistance, though, is "Alpha Beta Gaga," which takes the happiest melody Air have ever composed and warps it with a cheerfully whistled chorus that sounds right at home in an alien musical environment full of bright pizzicato strings, theremin and even a banjo. It's an artificial paradise that allows the strangest emotions to flourish together. In peak moments such as "Alpha Beta Gaga," Talkie Walkie sounds utterly unearthly but full of human feeling and wit. Listening to this album is like being married to Britney Spears -- it's beautiful, it's magical, it's disorienting, and it's over in an hour.

Rob Sheffield

4 STARS