Amazon.co.uk Review Truthfully it's been some time since Air's Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunkel could truthfully be said to be pop musicians, but their fourth album Pocket Symphony journeys further from the pop firmament than ever before. Slow, stately songs built around the tick of electronic drums, the trill of vintage synthesisers, and somewhat unexpectedly, some traditional Japanese instruments - the koto, a Japanese floor harp, and the banjo-like shamisen - it's an album apparently more concerned with texture and mood than crafting catchy pop fromage.

Certainly, it often does it well: 'Mayfair Song' locks into a dazed, lightly cosmic groove oddly reminiscent of Talk Talk circa Spirit Of Eden, all purposeful piano and moody, drifting bass, while the blissful 'Photograph' sees angelic vocals submerged within a tide of shimmering strings and trilling chimes. For the most part, vocals are fairly sparse, but there are two guest spots: the first from Jarvis Cocker, who murmurs like Scott Walker with a sore head through 'Hell Of A Party', and the second from The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, who invests 'Somewhere Between Waking And Sleeping' with an impressive melancholy soul. At first, it sounds slight, but carry Pocket Symphony with you, and feel it slowly work its magic. --Louis Pattison