When Moon Safari hit the shelves ten years ago it seemed to come from out of the blue, laid back, hypnotic, twinkling into the consciousness of the general public, thanks in part to its two killer singles, the metronomic vocoder stomp of ‘Sexy Boy’ (which threatened to be a one hit novelty single), and 'Kelly Watch The Stars'. Wearing their moogs, vocoders and other retro machines on their sleeves, that could well have been it for the two former architecture students from Versailles -two hits and then obscurity. However, delving deeper in to Moon Safari, it soon became obvious there was more to Air than a couple of fun singles. Fusing together lounge music, tropicalia, krautrock and classic french pop from the likes of Serge Gainsbourg, Moon Safari can be looked upon as an album that spawned a thousand imitators, and may be considered as the classic album of the ‘Chill Out’ genre. Coming at a time when the likes of Beck were being heaped with praise for his sampling of tropicalia and others for his classic Odelay, and Stereolab being at their height as well it is perhaps no surprise that Moon Safari was so quickly taken up by all and sundry. The time was right for a band that fused the organic and the electric, dance music and indie-pop.Album opener ‘La femme d’Argent’ begins with rain fall and a laid back beat, adding layers of keys and a walking bass line, electronic swirls and hypnotic clicks, a soothing sound that washes over rather than challenges the listener. This laid back feel continues throughout the record, dipping in to different genres like a child in a candyshop: Krautrock (the metronomic beats on 'Sexy Boy' being a case in point), West Coast pop (‘Remember’s distorted drum beat coming on like a Beach Boys intro, or the melancholy bossa-nova of ‘You Make It Easy’, featuring Beth Hirsch. The band also pay tribute to the godfather of french lounge pop, Serge Gainsbourg on closer ‘Le Voyage De Penelope’. In fusing all these influences into one album, Air managed to pull of something that thousands have tried to imitate, with little success. Even the band themselves seem to have accepted this, moving away from the sound for their subsequent, less successful releases.The delicate balance of kitsch that was Moon Safari is bought home on the bonus CD presented here. Mostly consisting of live versions and remixes, there is little here that is essential. The David Whitaker version of ‘Remember’ adds more luscious strings to the original, making it feel more cinematic, but possibly over romanticising the sound. More up beat live versions of ‘Kelly Watch The Stars’ and ‘Sexy Boy’ from a BBC session in 1998 fall flat as they become overtly funky, ‘Kelly...’ in particular coming on like a go-go number. The KRCW version of ‘You Make It Easy’ suffers the same fate, and makes me less sad to have missed the Air live shows if this is how they went down. Beck provides a frankly bizarre remix of ‘Sexy Boy’, featuring crisp munching, snorting and Prince-esque questioning "have you never seen a space shuttle before/ you wanna take me for a ride?". Only ‘Mabrouk’ stands as an equal to anything on the original record, and even then seems a bit to corny to have actually stood amongst their best work.Completing the package is a DVD produced by Mike Mills, made up predominantly of a 60 minute road documentary of Air’s first tour entitled Air: Eating, Sleeping, Waiting and Playing to the DVD which accompanies this special addition release. The DVD also features clips for 'Kelly Watch the Stars', and the 'Sexy Boy' video.Without doubt Moon Safari is a classic of it’s time, and will continue to be acclaimed for long into the future. However, this disappointing package just goes to show how special the minimalism of the original record was.89% for Moon Safari 37% for the extrasLinks Air [myspace] [official site]