DARKEL
***image1***
Darkel
Astralwerks
Jean-Benoît Dunckel's break from Air, the solo project Darkel, is an ethereal little trip into a darkness that Air never quite explored. The super-stylized synth-pop album is full of bouncing beats and bopping vocals, backed by sped-up and distorted electric guitar and supplemented by basic acoustic chords.
Darkel
starts out with a strange mix of music that belongs somewhere between
Poltergeist
and a new-age John Tesh album. The keyboards are overly dramatic, yet lacking the cheesiness they imply. The tones are so dark that kitsch falls away, leaving a spectrum of gray hues.
At times
Darkel
sounds like hippie music in an electronic setting. The darkness gives way to a rainbow of tinkle-y sounds without dropping the melancholy of the voice. Though Darkel is a Parisian through and through, the skipping, simple lyrics are sung in heavily accented English, making them at times indecipherable or uncertain. "I don't need diamond rings to earn my angel wings" bounces by so quickly during "My Own Sun" that what he says isn't certain for a few listens, but it doesn't matter.
Darkel
is one of those albums that is so catchy from the beginning, you start bopping your head and slowly turning up the volume until, by the end of the album, the music is blasting from the speakers. Then you simply must start over again, because, obviously, you missed something the first time around.
