- "Melancholic", "vaporous", "cosmic", "Italo" and "pop" are the words that Stephen Fasano used to describe his and Vito De Luca's music as Aeroplane. And, over the course of two 12-inches for the Eskimo label, he's been proven very much correct. These two Belgians are crafting some of the most melancholic vaporous cosmic Italo pop around. (Just ask Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, who used Aeroplane’s self-titled track on their 2007 Essential Mix.)
'Pacific Air Race' kicks off the group's second 12-inch in grand style. It's a space disco epic, complete with sawing strings, bouncy beat and sizzling synths. It's hard not to want to compare the track to Dominique Leone's 'Clairevoyage', but while Leone's track was willfully standing on the edge of control, Fasano and De Luca are craftsmen, loathe to allow any sound that doesn't belong. This, of course, doesn't mean that there aren't moments of spontaneity here—the stuttering drum before the beat vanishes in the track's final minute, for example—but one gets the sense that Aeroplane have everything carefully in hand.
This much is obvious from the way that the duo easily shift gears on the "Dub Club" mix of 'Pacific Air Race', which jettisons the pop song trappings for simpler builds-and-releases. Even so, I'm curious to understand why anyone would choose to lose the live character of the original in favor of digital knock-offs of the same.
'Above the Clouds' is most assuredly a B-side in the face of 'Pacific Air Race''s brilliance, but it's hardly a forgettable little tune either. The duo employs Daft Punk's digi-tars set against buzzing synthesizers and simply glides the rest of the way. After a lengthy float upwards into the stratosphere, the boys drop the beat. And, after a lengthy casual jaunt, they unleash (among other things) an acoustic guitar-led break. As Stephane Girard recently wrote on his blog, "Forget...Studio. This is what nü-Balearic is supposed to be all about."
TracklistA Pacific Air Race
B1 Pacific Air Race (Dubclub Mix)
B2 Above The Clouds