Doing their part for diplomacy, Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, the French duo Air, hired a pair of Texas sidemen and kicked off their current tour in the Lone Star state. The show was in Austin, but still. Air's dreamy pop isn't merely narcotic -- it's a certified coagulant -- so leaving the house to check out its live show seems counterintuitive. But early reports suggest that the four-piece smokes like a barbecue -- one Austin witness used the phrase jam-band ending to describe a performance of "Kelly Watch the Stars," from the band's first American release, 1998's Moon Safari. And Air's new, unfortunately titled Talkie Walkie goes a long way to ease the memory of 2001's 10,000 Hz Legend, a stab at making a postmodern Dark Side of the Moon that ended up sounding like Wish You Were Gay. Mosquitos, a peppy New York band of Brazilian obsessives supporting a debut full of indie-inflected samba -- call it bossa Chevy nova -- opens.
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