Anything but Kitsch

Madonna loves them, Beck remixed them, and David Lynch has dined with them.

So how are French musicians Jean Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, collectively known as Air, coping with their sudden, out-of-left-field success?

“We are very surprised, actually,” says Dunckel, 27, with the most conspicuous of French accents. “Because at the beginning we thought it was alien, underground music, ‘cause it’s so strange. But this is cool.”

Well, he’s got it half right. The music that Air creates--an etherized amalgam of ambient techno, billowy pop and torch Muzak--should by all rights be relegated to the pop margins.

Instead, the band’s debut album, “Moon Safari,” has become one of the year’s unlikeliest success stories, selling more than 300,000 copies worldwide so far. In Los Angeles, its best U.S. market, “Moon Safari” has sold almost 10,000 units, and the album has made the Top 10 of the College Music Journal’s airplay chart.

“We are very pleased with our success in America, because we think this is where all the good music is coming from now, particularly L.A.” says Godin, also 27. “ ‘Beck, Money Mark. . . . This is the music that inspired us to do our own thing.”

Like the artists they mention, the members of Air are rabid archivists in love with musical exotica, but less for the ironic kick than for its beauty and complexity. So don’t talk to Dunckel and Godin about lounge music, frothy pop or ‘60s movie soundtracks--echoes of which can be heard on “Moon Safari”--unless you mean business.

“We love a lot of great pop and movie music, because the harmonies are so complex,” says the soft-spoken Godin. “In France, cinema is huge, so we listen to a lot of composers like Nino Rota and John Barry. We also love Brian Wilson. A lot of people used to think the Beach Boys were uncool, but now everyone knows how great their music is. ‘Good Vibrations,’ the way that song is constructed, it’s amazing.”

Air’s lushly tranquil musical constructs are held together by the flimsiest of conceits--a Euro-disco synthesizer riff on “Sexy Boy,” a lolling bass line on “All I Need”--yet the end result is insidiously seductive.

Village Voice critic Will Hermes called “Moon Safari” “One of the most deliciously backward-looking records to come out of the machine music camp,” while Details’ Rob Tannenbaum called the album “make out music for Martian playboys.”

“Air grew up in a French culture that was very much in love with American pop culture, but they come at it from a very unique angle,” says Nick Clift, director of associated labels at Air’s American label, Caroline Records.

“They’ve managed to take the sum of their influences and made it their own. It’s very charming, but not at all vacuous. They straddle all these different genres, like space pop and lounge music, but with a pure pop sensibility. It’s something that really struck us when we first heard their demos.”

Call Air’s music what you want, but just don’t call it kitsch. That’s a tag numerous critics have pegged on “Moon Safari,” much to Dunckel and Godin’s dismay.

“A lot of people think that what we do is kitschy, but that was certainly not our intention,” says Dunckel. “That’s such a big part of our culture now, ‘cause we all grew up on TV, cartoons and advertising. Our aim was to create something of beauty, with deep, beautiful chords.”

Indeed, tracks such as “Kelly Watch the Stars” and “La Femme d’Argent” possess a sonic richness and emotional depth that’s lacking in most contemporary electronic music, a fact that Godin attributes to the band’s French origins. “In the U.S. and England, you make pop music to be a rock star, but in France, it’s considered art,” he says. “We’re a little more detached from what we’re doing, and can have a sense of fun about it, like what pop used to do before.”

Of course, it wasn’t always this way for Dunckel and Godin. There was a time not too long ago when the idea of being in a traditional pop band had its allure. The two met at college when they were both 18 and initially hooked up to form a band called Orange in 1988, only to find that they couldn’t cut it with loud guitars and lyrics. “When you’re young, you like to have a Marshall amp and shout into a mike,” says Dunckel.

But some good did come out of Orange, which also featured future French techno producer Etienne De Crecy. Dunckel and Godin learned how to operate recording equipment, which enabled them to become a self-sufficient unit by the time they metamorphosed into Air.

“We are not good technicians by any means,” says Dunckel, who favors vintage analog gear in the studio. “We make mistakes, but we keep them in, ‘cause they sound good. In fact, we never look at the manual books. We just plug in and see what happens.”

For the recording of “Moon Safari,” Dunckel and Godin decamped Paris in favor of an 18th century castle-turned-studio in suburban Versailles that provided the peaceful serenity they needed. “In Paris, we had phones, neighbors, cars--it was very hard for us,” says Dunckel. “In Versailles, we were able to get our work done.”

Now that Air finds itself the electronic band of the moment--it recently made Spin magazine’s list of the 40 most vital artists in music--they’re suddenly sorting through countless offers to remix other artists, not the least of them Madonna.

Are they planning on working with Mama Ciccone any time soon?

“We would like to do it,” says Dunckel. “But you know, as soon as you become mainstream, you don’t have any more time to do anything!”