Fans of the beloved French electronic duo Air can rub their hands with anticipation – the vocalist of the band Jean-Benoît Dunckel has just announced the release of an upcoming solo album titled H+ for a March 16th release.
March may sound like a long ways away, but the lead single and album opener “Hold On” has accompanied the album announcement, along with a music video. The album art, which features Dunckel suspended in a utopian space-scape, was created by the famous French design studio Akatre, who was also behind the video.
The visuals to the song match the otherworldly vibe, with melting faces and and intense, moody closeups of both Dunckel and an unknown female bathed in saturated blues, reds, and purples.
Air’s last release was last year’s anthology record twentyears, for which Dunckel got together with bandmate Nicolas Godin to tour for.
H+, Dunckel explains, “means Human+” and is “the symbol of trans-humanity.” The album is, in his words ”the soundtrack of a new positive way of life.” He has definitely also matured as an artist and musician, saying “I use Air’s sound experiences. I simply extended my sound. I do not renounce the past, in fact, I exploited it openly.”
H+ is his first album under his own name after a string of releases under collaborative side projects and aliases, including last year’s The Man Of Sorrow EP which was released under his alias Darkel, which he used previously 10 years ago to release an eponymous record.
Since, he has apparently fallen in love with string instruments and studio improvisations, as shown in the soundtrack work he did for Fabrice Gobert’s “K.O.,” Olivier Babinet’s “Swagger” and Alante Kavaite’s “The Summer of Sangailė.” On the new single, however, he returns to the sounds of synthesizers (including his favorite MS20 and Arp 2600) along with his characteristically sweet androgynous vocals.
Check out the video for “Hold On” and the album art for H+ below.
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