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Air @ Manchester Apollo

FRENCH duo Nicholas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel first arrived in the music fan's consciousness in 1998 with the release of Moon Safari, a seductive suite of electronic songs.

Its nagging choruses and insistent melodies gave French pop rare street credibility, and it sold by the truckload.

The follow-up, the clumsily titled 10,000Hz Legend bears no resemblance to Moon Safari. Air are a mix of mid-60s psychedelica, overblown pomp-rock and European pop electronica.

Godin and Dunckel, augmented by three other musicians, opened with the Gallic noodlings which pass for tracks from the new album, which were received with respect rather than enthusiasm.

What everyone wanted to hear was how Moon Safari would sound live. Songs such as Kelly Watch the Stars and Sexy Boy were given a stark slowed-down treatment, allowing the beauty they contain on record to flourish alongside the energy of being performed live.

The show was more all-round aural experience than common-or-garden pop gig, and most of the 3,500 audience probably filed out as mystified as they were at the start. But the show was none the worse for that.