Up until now, Nicolas Godin has been known to the world at large simply as one half of world-beating French duo Air, but that’s all about to change. On February 26, Godin will release his first-ever solo album, Contrepoint, via Because Records. After two decades of involvement with Air, you might wonder what it was that led Godin to finally venture out on his own. Well, according to him, “Sometime during my fourth world tour with my band AIR, I observed that: music was taking up only a small part of my daily life. I had become what Glenn Gould called ‘a travelling [sic] monkey in the concert circus…'”
Circuses and monkeys aside, in an effort whet the world’s appetite for his forthcoming album, Godin has already offered up a video for one of the tracks. “Bach Off,” which was filmed at the Paris Orly airport, was conceived as an homage to one of Godin’s musical inspirations, the legendary Argentinean film composer Lalo Schifrin. And you can certainly hear echoes of Schifrin’s rich, atmospheric mix of jazz, pop and rock influences over the course of Godin’s lengthy instrumental tune. What else does Contrepoint hold for us? We’ll have to wait and see.