donderdag 24 november 2011

Air to launch silent film inspired album


On the 7th of February the band Air will release a new album. It will be called Le Voyage Dans La Lune, after the movie of the same name. This short film, directed by George Melies in 1902, is one of the best known films from that time. It was shot in black and white (obviously) and it features a scene in which a spaceship lands in the eye of the man in the moon. If you are a Queen fan, I do believe it also makes an appearance in one of their clips. Both Beach House and Au Revoir Simone contributed to this project.


The voyage to the moon has hit quite the snag in terms of PR. Many a, ehrm, moons ago travelling to the moon was something as unattainable as it was mystifying. The moon, that gave light to the night along with its stars. The moon, who coily appears and disappears whenever it sees her fit. The moon, a gracious, benevolent, nocturnal creature if there ever was one. In raunchy French literature, a visit to this female goddess of the night was often a metaphor for sex and other unspeakable things. The reputation of la lune, as it was effectionately called, was so that, with developments of actually being able to go there, it spawned numerous travel agencies to open up, gearing up to offer protected trips to the moon.

Alas, as so often reality demystified the whole thing. When Gagarin’s seminal work (according to many a major exposé), Rocks and other things: the definite story on what the moon really is, came out, it replaced all the fictional representations of the moon, something it never bounced back from. All those travel agencies soon had Out of Business signs in the front yard, and the filth magazines had to think of other metaphors for their readership to get off on.

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