{"id":13834,"date":"2015-08-10T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riffsandbeats.com\/non-categorise\/dont-be-light-air\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T07:08:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T06:08:54","slug":"dont-be-light-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riffsandbeats.com\/fr\/chroniques\/titres\/dont-be-light-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Air – Don’t Be Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Paris and Los Angeles, 2000-2001: softer chords and a harder bass line<\/h3>\n

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Early 2001, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Beno\u00eet Dunckel are still building 10 000 Hz Legend<\/em>, and Don’t Be Light<\/em> is already the second piece on the tape. Electronic Performers<\/em> came first. Godin later told Shindig that each Air album keeps one song that could have belonged to the record before it. On this album, that song is Don’t Be Light<\/em>. The chords still carry the softer Air of Moon Safari<\/em>. The bass, the guests, and the length do not. The electric piano stays warm. The bass and the guests move the other way.<\/p>\n

Source and Virgin released the album in France on 28 May 2001. Astralwerks issued it in the United States the next day. Tracking had run through 2000 and 2001 at Appolo in Paris, then at the Bomb Factory in Los Angeles, Hollywood Sound, and Capitol in Hollywood. Air produced. Tony Hoffer came in for extra production, editing, and the mix, with Julien Delfaud assisting. Nilesh Patel mastered. Godin told KindaMuzik they had left the Versailles countryside, where Moon Safari<\/em> and The Virgin Suicides<\/em> were made, for a small place in town. He called the new record urban. Don’t Be Light<\/em> is where that change is easiest to hear: a long arrangement, a hard bass tone, and a line of guests who each left a part behind.<\/p>\n

The finished track runs 6 minutes 18 and sits at number 10. Brian Reitzell plays drums. Justin Meldal-Johnsen plays bass, including a distorted solo Dunckel later called unusually rocky for the duo. Roger Joseph Manning Jr. adds keyboards. Elin Carlson sings a soprano line. Jean Croc whistles toward the close. Beck speaks in the middle. On KCRW, 26 May 2001, a few days before the album reached shops, he said Air had asked him for Lizard King-type prose. He wrote it, thought it tipped into pretension, and they talked him into leaving it on the record. Unlike The Vagabond<\/em>, where Beck shares the writing credit, Don’t Be Light<\/em> lists Dunckel and Godin as the writers.<\/p>\n

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It’s a message to the people. I know that sounds pretentious, I know nobody cares, but it’s just to say, ‘Be yourself, don’t be part of the industrial system that wants you to consume some light product.’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Jean-Beno\u00eet Dunckel, Mojo, via Rock’s Backpages)<\/em><\/p>\n

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The single followed on 18 February 2002, with a video directed by Mrzyk and Moriceau. The album reached No. 7 in France and on the UK albums chart, No. 3 in Norway, and about 600,000 copies worldwide. Britain later certified it gold. Listeners who had wanted a second Moon Safari<\/em> were cooler: Metacritic settled at 68. Q still named 10 000 Hz Legend<\/em> one of its 50 best albums of 2001. Dunckel told the same Shindig conversation that visitors kept adding something to Don’t Be Light<\/em> before they left the studio, and that the track summed the record up. Godin called the album’s structures a bit too complicated, then pointed at this song as the one that still belonged to the previous Air.<\/p>\n

Play it after Electronic Performers<\/em> and the split is easy to hear. The electric piano is still warm. The distorted bass, the soprano, the whistle, and Beck’s flat spoken verse come from the 2001 sessions. Air did not repeat Moon Safari<\/em>. They kept this song tied to the previous Air, then moved on. The single arrived nine months after the album. That is when the track left the album sequence and became its own single.<\/p>\n

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\u00c0 lire aussi<\/h3>\n