Air are currently on an extensive world tour to promote the deluxe edition of their landmark 1998 album ‘Moon Safari’. Performing inside a huge glass box that looks like something out of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin are playing the album live and in full for the first time – and the result is a major triumph. The pair speak about the gorgeously languid and exquisitely produced ‘Moon Safari’ in our cover feature, as we assess the influence of a record that hit double platinum sales in the UK and remains an electronic masterpiece to this day. With big bells on.

Elsewhere in the mag, we have interviews with industrial technoids British Murder Boys, pop experimentalist Conny Frischauf and oddball hauntologists Orbury Common. We also chat with veteran DJ Richard Sen, Radiophonic Workshopper Paddy Kingsland and Minimal Wave boss Veronica Vasicka, while Adrian Sherwood and Dennis Bovell recall the making of Creation Rebel’s classic ‘Dub From Creation’ album. Add in the eclectic DMX Krew and art rockers Walt Disco, who have just been touring with OMD, and you’ve got lots of good stuff to read in the coming weeks. 

We’re bundling this issue with a clear vinyl seven-inch featuring two sizzling hot remixes of the intoxicating and irresistible ‘Sexy Boy’, a highlight of ‘Moon Safari’ and one of Air’s most popular tracks. The wonky downtempo version on the A-side of our single is the work of Étienne De Crécy, a key figure on the French electronic scene for many years and an old friend of Air’s from their home town of Versailles. The B-side is meanwhile a muscular remix by the highly rated Cassius, formerly known as La Funk Mob, which Nicolas Godin remembers hearing in a Paris club one night. 

“The music was loud and someone suddenly started shouting, ‘Hey, sexy boy, sexy boy!’,” says Godin. “I turned around and it was Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk. He said, ‘I've heard your album and it’s badass!’. That’s a great memory for me.”