Did you ever think you’d have to buy tickets to access Air? No – pollution hasn’t gotten that bad, we were just making an apocalyptic joke. We’re actually talking about the 90’s band Air, who were some of the first in what we would now call the “chillstep” genre, though that term didn’t exist back then.

Chillstep is a sub-genre of dubstep, which is a sub-genre of electronic dance music, so that’s your vocabulary lesson of the day. Chillstep is known for its electronic sounds and underlying bass but lacks that heart-pounding energy most EDM has. Instead of being the kind of music you listen to when you want to get pumped up, Chillstep, our suggested genre categorization for Air, is the kind of music you’d put on while you were studying or cleaning the kitchen. It’s relaxing, intriguing, and almost impossible to stop listening to once you’ve started!

Wave Riders

Air got their start as members of a band named Orange. The two friends, Jean Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, separated from Orange in 1995, to create what would become, Air. They had good timing – it was the beginning of the French Electronica phase, which produced the famous French duo, Daft Punk.

Let’s Go on a Moon Safari!

Air rode the Daft Punk wave all the way into a record contract with Virgin in 1998. They put out their first album that same year. Between the two of them, they’ve put out eight albums in the twenty-plus years they’ve been making music. Not too bad! It’s been a while since they released something new, so we’re expecting new music from them anytime now.