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During the uncertain first year of the pandemic, JB Dunckel's thoughts turned to what he considers life's absolutes: the insignificance of man in the face of outer space but also our eternal material connection to the cosmos. Carbon, the title of his third solo album, references this crucial elemental relationship. "When you burn it, it doesn't go away," says this former physics student. "It's full of strength - diamonds are crystallised carbon. Carbon is the thing that makes you solid. It's the most important thing in our bodies and in our lives, but we're hardly aware of it."
The title reflects Dunckel's "admiration for scientific things in general" (and its cover his fascination with geometric shapes). That mindset - futurist, progressive, determined that a brighter future is possible - informs his first album in four years. In news that will delight fans of his fantastical, enigmatic work as half of defining 2000s pop duo Air, it is a return to pop - of sorts - after a spell producing acclaimed soundtracks for the likes of François Ozon's film Summer of 85 (for which Dunckel received a César nomination). Never one to fixate on the past - Air is definitively over, he says but who knows? - Carbon is also about pushing forward, combining his innate pop nous with a desire to experiment and match his compositional masters.
Prior to the pandemic, he collaborated on live shows with an artist friend, Jacques Perconte, who produced glitchy digital imagery that Dunckel improvised to. "It gave me a lot of energy and new ideas," he says. The unpredictability of analogue keyboards in a live setting "was really interesting for me and really risky. It was a way to change my music and not be afraid of doing something really different." During lockdown, Dunckel was able to sequester himself his studio (Air's former HQ) and enjoy the luxury of time, producing even more tracks than would fit on Carbon (he's saving them for future release) and trying out other experiments: on the methodically charging Spark, he explored serial music, finding reassurance once again in mathematical form.
The stability of the Carbon concept and Dunckel's faith in science pushed him to dream about possible utopian futures and how we might escape our current predicament. "We have to change our way of living or we're going to seriously be in trouble," he says. "Covid is the viral aspect of some future, major crises." The album's most grounded song, the ruminative Zombie Park, was inspired by a park in Jaurès Paris, near Dunckel's Paris apartment, where the authorities rounded up homeless communities. Dunckel's utopian vision of revolution can be spiritual. The airy, chiming Cristal Mind, he says, was made to channel the moment after yoga or meditation where "you feel your spirit clear as crystal. You feel your brain and body, you have no aggression. It's a vibration I wanted to put into music." Sex UFO is jokier, a female voice (JB's Voice actually) dreamily observing a "Sex UFO, flying over LA" in a way that can't help but recall the likes of Jeff Bezos seeking to colonise space with their unexpected penis rockets. Sometimes, however, Dunckel's vision of utopia is more idiosyncratic. He's always been captivated by outer space (after all, he was our Moon Safari tour guide), a key theme of Carbon, because it reminds him that life is short and everything we do will be forgotten. "It helps me to be happy," he says. "To take distance with things and feel as if life is a funny movie. On the languid Space, Heather D Angelo of the US band Au Revoir Simone muses the philosophical properties of the cosmos: "What do you call space? It's more than just an absence."
Dunckel also entertains the provocative idea that big tech may save us yet. The triumphalist Corporate Sunset considers how "big corporations are changing the world and what they propose could be paradise," Dunckel explains. "That song is optimistic but big tech companies are more likely to bring us hell. They're more powerful now than any country - they're the new kings." Whether that's better or worse than traditional forms of power is up for debate, he says. "Why would a government necessarily provide something good for people? Politicians are often nothing more than the entertainment branch of these corporations."
Carbon opens up a space to consider these alternative futures. Dunckel calls his new album a psychological test, one that reveals the listener's own persuasions. His, he explains, are to make music that helps him escape reality. "It's all about creating waves that bring me happiness - or that reveal how I feel. It has to drag me into a dream or a sort of internal pleasure." He wants it to make listeners feel "ready to travel in space", he says. "Music brings energy and I want them to feel this energy." With Carbon, Dunckel is supplying the raw materials.
