June 2007 Virgin single: Pocket Symphony’s Sea of Japan
Mer du Japon is track eight on Air’s March 2007 album Pocket Symphony, written by Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin and produced with Nigel Godrich at Revolvair and Gang studios in Paris. Virgin released it as the second single on 11 June 2007 (radio edit about 2:33; album version 3:04), with remixes by Kris Menace and The Teenagers. The French title translates as “Sea of Japan”; the music stays cool and spare, closer to ambient pop than to the guest-vocal tracks elsewhere on the LP. You hear space around the beat on purpose: the song invites a quiet listen, then rewards it with detail that does not shout.
Godin had been studying Japanese instruments, including koto and shamisen, and those colours seep into the Pocket Symphony palette without turning the song into pastiche. Soft drums, keyboard figures, and a restrained vocal sit under Godrich’s clear engineering. Beside Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon collaborations on the same album, Mer du Japon is the duo speaking alone: atmosphere first, slogan second. That restraint is why the three-minute cut feels larger than its runtime; nothing crowds the midrange, so the eastern colours read as texture rather than costume.
Guillaume de la Perrière directed the video, with choreography by Angelin Preljocaj. Pitchfork later flagged the Kris Menace remix among its Top 100 Tracks of 2007. On the Pocket Symphony tour, the song fitted the live set as a mid-tempo reset between denser pieces, proof that Air could still write a short single after Talkie Walkie. Remasters keep Godrich’s midrange calm; the single packages keep the remixes as period extras for DJs who wanted a club angle on the same postcard.
Mer du Japon.
(Title / hook, Air, Pocket Symphony single, Virgin, 2007)
Return to the album mix and the koto-tinged keys still leave air around the beat. Beside Once Upon a Time, Mer du Japon is Pocket Symphony’s cleanest postcard: Paris studio craft looking east without tourist kitsch. Put it on when you want Air without a guest star in the foreground and without a big chorus demanding attention.
Three minutes four. Enough sea for one side of a single. Press play for the quiet room Godrich left open between the drums and the keys.
