monkey safari album

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by Monkey Safari

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Spectrum Amsterdam, Netherlands

Record label and event series founded by Joris Voorn.

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Like so many others, this came like a bolt out of the blue and, even though it's well before payday, I had to have this astonishing album on vinyl to prove it exists. The feel of the tunes makes me feel like the Impressions do, Curtis Mayfield, the big spaces and instinctive horns and stuff drifting in and out. Great grooves and I can see lots of ghosts nodding along to this with big smiles on their faces. At last! Anthony Cottrell

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• July 3, 2019
• Aria Groove

Monkey Safari: “Our music is much more melodic and emotional now”

The duo follow up their last lp, ‘odyssey’, with this warm, inviting collection of music designed to brighten your day and complement the glorious sunny days that bless us during the summer. sven and lars learned some valuable lessons from their last long-player, and the new album ‘hi’ comes from a far more relaxed, easy-going place., an organic project that came together quite naturally, their third album sees the duo in high spirits ready to bring a large dose of positive vibes and emotional depth to the party. with lars about to welcome his first child, the duo are clearly full of goodwill, optimism and good vibrations and ‘hi’ is reflective of this positive headspace. monkey safari will be sure to touch all scopes of dance culture with no signs of deceleration on the horizon. their mandate remains the same, sending sunny vibes to make even the darkest dance floors smile..

We caught up with Monkey Safari to talk about ‘HI’ .

Electronic Groove: Hi, Monkey Safari, thanks for chatting with us. Congratulations about your new LP ‘Hi’. What’s the first word that comes to your mind regarding this achievement?

Monkey Safari: Hello all! A new chapter, since ‘ HI’ stands for welcoming the beginning of a lot of new things.

EG: We really enjoyed ‘New Day’ premiere. What was the inspiration to produce this track?

Monkey Safari: I think ‘ New Day’ is the perfect soundtrack for getting rid of things which bother you or starting a new chapter with a positive mind. In this sense you could also see it a bit as a symbol of the transformation we have been going through lately.

EG: What about the whole album. Any special focus on the sound you wanted to achieve?

Monkey Safari: We just recently decided to take a step back from the darker sounds and not to get influenced too much by the techno hype that has been happening lately. With this being said, we tried to produce a new sound that reflects our personality and what we are truly feeling. Our music is much more melodic and emotional now.

EG: How long did it take to produce the complete LP? Where it was recorded?

Monkey Safari: All of our songs are produced in our studio back home. The production of ‘HI’ took us about 6 months.

“HI stands for welcoming the beginning of a lot of new things”

EG: What would you say is the difference between ‘HI’ and ‘Odyssey’?

Monkey Safari: They are quite contrary . ‘Odyssey‘ was way deeper in comparison with ‘HI’ which is full of positive and happy sounds. You could say it’s the perfect summer soundtrack 🙂

EG: Any tours planned in order to promote the album?

Monkey Safari: We have a couple of shows coming up in India and a release party in our hometown. But since the festival season is right around the corner, we have plenty of possibilities to promote the album.

EG: Summer is here. What are your plans for the warm season?

Monkey Safari: We love all kind of outdoor parties, so we are really looking forward to that kind of shows. It’s always nice to play outside in the sun or a warm summer night and to have a good time with the crowd.

EG: What’s the origin of the Monkey Safari name?

Monkey Safari: We always wanted to produce happy songs which help people to enjoy themselves and make them forget about their everyday life. Kind of like you feel on vacation. I guess with this thought at some point the name ‘Monkey Safari’ just came up.

Monkey Safari’s ‘HI’ is already available. Stream and buy here . 

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Monkey Safari

Latest release.

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Monkey Safari

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Talk To Me EP

Gravity / Daka

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Anjunadeep 12

James grant & jody wisternoff.

Anjunadeep The Yearbook 2019

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Hyperfall (Remixed)

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Odyssey (LP)

By monkey safari.

Digital Album Streaming + Download

Buy digital album   €7 eur  or more, send as gift  , share / embed.

Monkey Safari Halle (Saale), Germany

• Jun 28 Festival LISB-ON Lisbon, Portugal

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Air's Moon Safari is an era-defining French album worth celebrating, 25 years on

There's no telling how many special moments have been soundtracked by Moon Safari, the acclaimed 1998 debut album from French duo Air.

An era-defining record of pristine, space-age lounge music delivered with cinematic atmosphere and a distinctively French je ne se quios , Moon Safari was a universal critical and commercial success upon release.

The lush easy-listening music was perfectly suited to post-club comedowns, hip cafes, and make-out sessions: smooth and dreamy enough to be played in the background, but singular and masterfully crafted enough to reward close listening.

It proved highly influential, too. But the wave of mellow, down tempo imitators and 'chill out' CD compilations it spawned struggled to surpass Air's chic, exquisitely woozy beauty.

'It was not meant to be played live'

Jean-Benoît Dunckel, one half of Air alongside Nicolas Godin, never expected Moon Safari's enduring success.

"We never imagined this album could work that way worldwide," he tells Karen Leng on Double J Lunch. 

"It took time, it took decades, [but] the success is not by us, the audience made [it]."

This year, the duo has been playing Moon Safari in full around the world on their first tour in seven years, including Australia.

"It was not made to be played live," says Dunckel. 

"We had to adapt it for the live [setting]. That is what the people want to get — this special feeling they heard the first time… to live again these feelings."

Having played two nights at the Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid Live , Air will live-stream their show at London's Royal Albert Hall this weekend.

"It's a beautiful venue," says Dunckel, who is keen to preserve a pristine performance of the album online for future access.

"It's really important to do that because… people can also discover the band live. Some people appreciate the live versions more than the recorded versions."

Performing as a trio, alongside drummer Louis Delorme, Air play inside an oblong box adorned with dazzling lights and visuals, which morph from swathes of minimalist colour to the perspective of a spaceship enjoying interstellar travel.

"We play in a box of light. It looks a bit like the studio on the cover of 10 000 Hz Legend," says Dunckel, referencing the band's second studio album — a weirder, wilder reaction to Moon Safari.

"It could be a home, it could be our world, our head, our architectural concept. It helps for people to enter into a world… people like [that] intimacy."

Dunckel says people often ask: "Are you not bored to play these songs you play for 20 years now?"

"Sometimes I struggle — because you have to concentrate, and you have to play. But I'm never bored. It's always a pleasure."

Moon Safari is a product of its era, but it's also aged beautifully.

It's an evocative listening experience, from the moment lengthy opener 'La femme d'argent' ushers you in with the sounds of water and slinky bassline, through to the weightless pop and robot-voiced melodies of 'Kelly Watch The Stars' and 'New Star in the Sky'.

In 1998, its retro-futuristic arrangements already sounded timeless. 25 years later, its ability to transport your mind and imagination elsewhere hasn't dated one iota.

"It could be a journey, a love story," remarks Dunckel. "That's why we're really attached to it. I think the audience is searching for that, too.

"It helps human relationships in every way," adds Dunckel. Over the years, Air fans have shared "so many stories" of what the album means to them.

"Most of the time it's for love. It's always, 'I met my girlfriend or wife this time'."

Back in 1998, Dunckel told triple j that while hiking in Iceland, his guide revealed Moon Safari was his love-making soundtrack.

There's "probably" plenty of babies in the world with some of the album's DNA in them since, Dunckel estimates of a new generation discovering Air for the first time.

"As we are getting old now, it's becoming that people say, 'oh yeah, my parents were listening to Moon Safari when we were travelling in a car; this family time'."

Sexy Boy, the surprising queer anthem

For many, debut single 'Sexy Boy' was their first introduction to Air. A seductive slice of synth-pop that brought vocoder back to the pop charts and sung in both French and English.

It's a seemingly simple song but Dunckel notes there's "a lot of tolerance and freedom" embedded in it.

"Sexy Boy, first of all, is a strange title because it breaks a certain taboo. The taboo is that heterosexual boys can check out other boys," he explains.

"Also, it became a gay slogan in a way. A gay anthem."

The song took on a new meaning in late 90s Paris when the electronic music scene's wider acceptance of the LGTBQI+ community led to more club and techno nights dedicated to queer punters and DJs emerging.

"There was a lot of gay parties," says Dunckel. "Homosexuality is everywhere in the world, and it's always existed, always there. So, it was important to liberate this movement."

Originally, the song's titular phrase was inspired by Parisian fashion culture.

"People are checking each other out all the time… In Paris, when a couple is meeting another couple, the girl is not going to check out the boy. She's going to check out the other girl: analyse what she wears, how she behaves, what is the fashion or type of the boyfriend.

"Sexy Boy is speaking about that. The fact a man wants to be a pretty man and he is checking [out] other boys."

A popular soundtrack choice, featured in teen rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You and noughties TV drama Queer As Folk, 'Sexy Boy' is also a testament to youth.

The French verses are "celebrating that golden age of being young," Dunckel explains.

"When you're young you don't realise you're at the top of your life. You have a lot of power, actually… because you're beautiful. Your skin, hair, you feel great, you have a lot of energy."

The makings of a classic

Despite its iconic status, Moon Safari was actually the last roll of the dice for Dunckel and Godin.

Raised in the conservative suburb of Versailles, the pair began making music together after meeting at school. But after having their demo tapes rejected by every record label they approached, they quit music and instead focused on their studies.

Each had established careers — Godin in architecture, Dunckel in mathematics — when an opportunity presented itself in a close friend landing a role with Virgin Records imprint Source.

They landed a deal with the label but ditching their jobs for a full-time career in music to support their burgeoning families was a gamble.

"We were 26 years old. We were not sure we come be musicians for the rest of our life," remembers Dunckel. "I was already working [as] a physics teacher… I had a baby."

Thankfully, their risk was rewarded when their debut album became a breakout international hit. Air was swiftly lumped alongside a fresh wave of Parisian artists reinventing the electronic music scene in the late 90s.

Dubbed French touch, the movement included Cassius, St. Germain, Étienne de Crécy, and Daft Punk, who recorded their breakout 1997 album Homework down the street from where Air made Moon Safari.

"There was a kind of energy circulating all over Paris," recalls Dunckel. "Paris is kind of small; all the media, artists and business part of it [were] working all together."

The worlds of music, fashion, contemporary art, cinema — "everything was mixed," Dunckel says.

"At this time, new generations of young people coming from the suburbs are even inside Paris and mixing all these rich, futuristic concepts together with new machines, samplers, computer programs to make music."

A fond farewell to youth

Despite being poster boys for the future of French music, Moon Safari was an evocative, nostalgia-drenched ode to Dunckel and Godin's past.

"In a way it was the end of my youth… That's why the songs [on Moon Safari], there are a lot of regrets and it's a goodbye to our youth and the innocence of it.

"It's full of vibrations from teenage times."

Although labelled an electronic act, Air's music wasn't rooted in beats and house music. Instead, they armed themselves with analogue Moog and Korg synthesizers, vintage drum machines, vocoders and the trusty Rhodes piano.

The resulting compositions bore the esprit of Serge Gainsbourg, electronic pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre, and the 1970s film and TV soundtracks of Dunckel's childhood.

There's a fondness for the psychedelic grandeur of Pink Floyd and ELO. But also, Burt Bacharach arrangements, particularly in the wistful French horn topline of ''Ce matin là' (This morning) and the easy-going 'You Make It Easy' and 'All I Need', both featuring the lyrics and vocals of Godin's then-neighbour, Beth Hirsch.

From its lush, otherworldly sounds right down to its title, Moon Safari gives rise to cosmic ideas and conducive to escapism. That spirit is central to Air's entire ethos.

"I think music exists in paradise and you can feel this [album] is in a strange interface between our world and something else."

Such ephemeral expressions might be surprising coming from a former physics teacher, but Dunckel says "both sides of your brain help" when it comes to making emotive art.

"There is a mathematic aspect of music, that analyses and helps you perform and conceive music. But there is something else happening, your heart is talking.

"As a musician you're organising the vibrations of your heart and the feelings into music… vibrations travelling into space and air."

"When I do a song, it's all about 'what do I feel?'" Dunckel concludes.

"For me, good means it affects me. No good means I don't feel anything… if it affects me, it's going to affect others, too. They're going to feel the feelings I do, too."

Air live-stream their performance at London's Royal Albert Hall on Saturday 1 June. Details here .

Hear Karen Leng hosting  Lunch on Double J from midday Monday to Thursday.

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