Carbon

JB Dunckel, one half of the French duo Air, releases a new solo album called Carbon, his follow-up to 2018’s H+.

Carbon, JB Dunckel’s first album in four years, considers the recent uncertainties that have befallen the planet and explores diffuse visions of how a better future might look.

There are meditations on existential bliss (the airy, chiming Cristal Mind) and egotistical escapist fantasies (Sex UFO, which can’t help but recall Jeff Bezos phallic rocket). Yet Carbon also considers the subversive pleasures of nihilism: revelling in man’s insignificance compared to the cosmos (the languid Space) and wondering whether big tech might save us yet (the triumphalist Corporate Sunset).

The album is a psychological test that reveals the listener’s own outlook, says Dunckel – an artist who taught pop fans how to dream more than 20 years ago as half of the trailblazing cosmic pop duo Air.