Not to be confused with the Henry Threadgill project, nor the Googie Coppola joint (who dropped exactly one album on Herbie Mann's Embryo subsidiary before disappearing), nor the more recent sleazy-listening duo from France.  This Japanese quintet of Yasuo Shimura, Renkichi Hayashi, Nobuyoshi Ino, Hiroshi Murakami, and Yuji Imamura continued to preach the gospel of Get Up With It, years after even Miles himself lost the faith.  Yessir, this is elevated music, pure in spirit and intention and absolutely mindblowing in effect.  Air's sole (eponymous) album is two sidelong cuts of psychedelic electric jazz, testified by five heads who mix Eastern and Western instrumentation into a thick brew of prime Kozmigroov: ringmodulated guitar lines, windchime swirls, ARP dissonance, deep bass echoes, wood flute invocations, processed saxophone, tape effects, subtly assertive grooves, omnipresent layers of percussion... mercy!  The brazen shuffle which seizes the last quarter of the record actually reaches the same jazz/rock peak intensity of Jack Johnson's "Right Off." Three Blind Mice are an audiophile label who've reissued an armful of their back-catalog titles on compact disc. Although this album still awaits aluminum rebirth as of May 1999, Takeshi "Tee" Fujii (TBM prez) has promised an XRCD version. [DW]

I can't find this CD, though I have looked, what could I search? (email me if you know david@rethaw.com)
[David]

Killer - all props to DW's insightful review, this is everything I hoped it would be and more. I'd like to alert the faithful that a CD is available from the mighty musicselection.com as of 10/25/04 if anyone is interested.
[The Phantom Screed]

Dope
[Edward Appah]