Air

From the opening beats and noises that make up 10,000 Hz Legend, you know that Air is not in Kansas anymore. Three years after Moon Safari - an album that not only set the stage for the post-club scene but introduced the obsessive world of Parisian pop - Air have delivered their next masterpiece. "Electronic Performers," an ode to Kraftwerk, starts off the album in a dark and disturbing way. 10,000 Hz Legend is like having sex with your laptop: cold, electronic and much different from the norm. Gone are the pure and warm vocals of Beth Hirsch, and replacing them are robots - SuGar from Buffalo Daughter and Beck. First single, "Radio #1," is a head-bopping anthem for the year 2222, that was said to be a joke, and you can tell with its silly chorus and soulful R&B vocals towards the end. "Wonder Milky Bitch" is about country girls and blow jobs that seems to have brought Boris Karloff back from the dead to sing the lead. As "Caramel Prisoner" finishes the album with its funereal organ and "oohs," you get a sense that Air were not interested in revisiting their successful brand of easy listening pop, and were determined to make something for themselves. And when you have an album this good, where Beck can abuse his brand of cowpoke yodelling to no harmful effect, you know that Air are good at pleasing themselves and the listener.