tonight
Tonight: Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock doors at 8 pm we go on 9.40 for a 50 min dj-set. Zomby, The Field and and Abe Vigoda are supporting
Drug autumn
Autumn is heading for our coast and will be here in a couple of weeks, so we are planning to go away for a short dj-tour somewhere near the sun. Let us know if you want to set something up, we are not expensive.
theairfrance@gmail.com
And follow us on twitter for more information. twitter.com/theairfrance
Henrik and Joel
This goes out to those who are in Gothenburg this weekend for the Way Out West festival.
Since neither of us has the competence or means to throw a proper release party for our new single, we thought we’d keep things simple. We will offer free breakfast sandwitches, but if you’re thirsty we suggest you bring wine. We tried to get the editors of Les Inrockuptibles to host a cultural-political debate, but since they’ve already cancelled, we’re not sure about what we’ll do for entertainment. Hopefully we will get our hands on a boom box and play some mp3s.
Saturday the 13th, two hours in the middle of the day, starting at 12 o’clock noon. At Skansen Kronan.
There is a Facebook event. Click the pic, please!
And you asked….
I watched you
Your bus
I watched you
Your bus
I watched you from my balcony last month
running through the park
hoping to catch your bus
Seven days ago I saw you headin home
cycling through gnat-swarms
the scents came back with the sun
Twenty minutes ago on the way to the studio
you were on the tram looking fucking top, and you asked:
“are you with air france?”
It feels good to be around you
How would the folks who works with you describe you?
Air France: Ineffective, they are not impressed by how we run Air France. The fact that we stole a dill plant and 22 bottles of red wine from our manager’s house last month did not make things better.It’s been two years since the last release, why are you so ineffective, what’s going on?We are very good at geography and nature, botanical things and so on, but we are completely useless when it comes to music. Joel has no sense of structure at all and Henrik doesn’t know how to start or finish a song. Many years ago we cut the base from Jennifer Lara’s “I am in love” and played it with a simple melody on an Omnichord OM-27 and was overwhelmed by the fact that we had done it. I think that’s the way we think about music, but it works, unfortunately, not very often. We’ll sit half a day in front of YouTube thinking “how the hell did they do that?”. We have many questions for George Harrison that will never be answered.Why don’t you just give up?
Giving up takes courage, courage to face that emptiness that comes when you decide to erase something that has been a part of your life for years. I don’t think we’re strong enough to do it at the moment. Working with Air France, which is so slow and abstract to us, also feels like a mental resistance to how things are with the current Swedish government, who constantly emphasize values about being direct, clear and effective. There’s a fear of all things artistic and peculiar.
What’s your interest in politics?
We are interested in politics and talk about it often, follow events and read a lot, although we are not active in any party. We donate a little money here and there to causes close to us, we protest on the first of May, and don’t eat meat (people can demonstrate against commercialism, but tend to forget that the mistreatment of animals is one of it’s ugliest sides). We have tried to write songs based on our political views, but lyrics are so important and we’re no good at it. We’d rather let others do it. Jens Lekman, I think, does it well right now.
Ok. Tell me about your new single.
“It feels good to be around you” is about love from a distance, that nervous feeling that comes with wanting to get to know another person that you adore, one way or the other. It is sunny of course. We got help from our Mancunian friend Star Slinger with the mixing part.
You play records sometimes?That’s right. With mixed results, but we tend to do quite well. We’re not technical about it, but I think we’ve found a style that suits us. But you know, sometimes we end up at places where we’re supposed to fil in the gaps between bands wearing sweatbands, and those nights are almost never any good at all. Places that empties out after the last band plays their last song.
Will you play live?
Yes, it is part of our plan. We are looking forward to it, but it will happen when we have more things out there.
What are you reading at the moment?
Joel: An early book by Joan Didion and that book about that cat who lived in that library in Iowa during the 90s. Henrik: “The Sexual Life of Catherine M” by Catherine Millet, “Breeding Ground” by Shaun Hutson, “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain and “Lost Yesterday” by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Sometimes I confuse the story lines, but it works.
How would you describe your roles in Air France?
Joel: I am definitely contributing to the vitality, definitely.
Henrik: I am the one who makes sure that we have a good time. If I’m in a room with 30 people, I guarantee you that I can get everyone in that room to laugh in 10 seconds. Joel can bring the same room to tears in less than 5.Joel has been running around town with short hair lately, while Henrik’s still long-haired, wheren’t you supposed to cut your hair at the same time when you had released something new?
Henrik: Joel cut himself two weeks ago, he thought he was done with his part. I don’t really think it’s fair. I mean, that wasn’t really the deal, was it? We even shook hands on it. I haven’t touched any part of Joel since we played soccer in gym class, so I thought of it as a kind of significant event. And you know, I do realize that it was a pretty childish bet in the first place, but from where I’m sitting, a bet is a bet and it should be honoured, you know? I don’t know, it just grinds my gears.
So who’s singing on the new song, and what happened to Elisabet who sang on your first ep?
Elisabet is studying law in Umeå. We had a nice relationship, but when she moved from Gothenburg we found ourselves signing up for text loans to afford train tickets, missing half the departures anyway. Then we got Tiny to help us, Henrik’s girlfriend at the moment, and now we also have the help of a girl called Kajsa. She fills in and brings cool ideas to the studio.
What will happening in the future?We have always dreamt of those last moments where we’re finishing the last changes of the last song of what could be our first full lenght record. I don’t know if I’ll ever live to see that day. We are restless people, always wanting to try diffrent things, never able to let a song be. Maybe we’re meant to just release singles and eps, and it’s such a grief to come to that understanding now, after two years of recording. Maybe not. We’ll see.