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Jean-Benoît Dunckel in a dark shirt at a keyboard, head tilted back, eyes closed
Jean-Benoît Dunckel in Ferrara, 6 July 2004 (cropped). Daniele Dalledonne · CC BY-SA 2.0
Nicolas Godin in a black shirt and tie playing a pale bass guitar at a microphone
Nicolas Godin in Ferrara, 6 July 2004 (cropped). Daniele Dalledonne · CC BY-SA 2.0

Versailles · Paris · London · Hollywood

AirJean-Benoît Dunckel & Nicolas Godin

Dunckel and Godin in Ferrara, July 2004. Tap the horizon: it is a Modulor rule.

Photographs: Daniele Dalledonne, Ferrara, 6 July 2004 · CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped. Full credit under the panorama below.

Before 1995 · Versailles

Two from Versailles.

Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel are both from Versailles. The two first played together in a band called Orange, after Alex Gopher brought Godin in. When Gopher left, the pair carried on, and by 1995 they were Air.

A bronze equestrian statue on a tall plinth under a blue sky in front of the palace
Place d’Armes, Versailles, with the statue of Louis XIV, in 2024. GFreihalter · CC BY-SA 4.0

183

Place d’Armes, Versailles

Dunckel was born in Versailles on 7 September 1969, and trained in mathematics; he went on to teach.

An open square in front of the palace, free to walk across at any hour.

Sources
A long pale stone wing of a seventeenth-century stable building with tall arched windows
A wing of the Petite Écurie on Avenue Rockefeller, home of the Versailles architecture school, in 2026. iMahesh · CC BY-SA 4.0

113

Petite Écurie du Roi

Godin studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles.

The school shares the king’s small stable, facing the palace, with a gallery of plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculpture, first made to train French artists.

The Galerie des Sculptures et des Moulages is free, at weekends from 1 April to 31 October, 12.30 to 6.30pm (last entry 5.45pm). The architecture school itself is not open to visitors.

Sources
Château de Versailles

Galerie des Sculptures et des Moulages

Avenue Rockefeller, Versailles

Free, inside the Petite Écurie that the architecture school shares: weekends from 1 April to 31 October, 12.30 to 6.30pm, last entry 5.45pm.

Plan a visit
Airelles

Le Grand Contrôle

Château de Versailles

A hotel inside the Château de Versailles estate, across the square from the stable where Godin studied: period rooms with garden views, a personal butler and picnics in the gardens.

See rooms

Modulor Mix · November 1995

Play the Modulor.

Godin made it while studying architecture: a song meant to be played within the Modulor, Le Corbusier’s system of measures for housing, inside a Le Corbusier house.

Le Corbusier built it from a man 183 cm tall with his navel at 113 cm: 183 divided by 113 is 1.619, the golden number. The red series steps down from the man; the blue series, from 226 cm, reaches his raised hand. Here each rung is a note, and each step down sounds 1.619 times higher: a little wider than a minor sixth.

The Modulor
  1. ·
  2. ·
  3. ·
  4. ·
  5. ·
  6. ·

Tap the rungs to write a phrase of up to 6 measures.

A white modernist roof terrace with a pale rail and green trees beyond
The roof terrace of Maison La Roche, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, 1923–25. Jean-Pierre Dalbéra · CC BY 2.0

10 square du Docteur Blanche, Paris 16e

Maison La Roche

Air’s first record, the Modulor Mix, came out on the Paris label Source in November 1995.

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret built Maison La Roche in 1923 to 1925. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Godin named no house; this is the Le Corbusier house in Paris you can walk into.

Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm (last entry 5.30pm); €10, reduced €5, under-14s free. Online booking is required. Métro Jasmin.

Sources
Fondation Le Corbusier

Maison La Roche guided visit

Paris 16e

An hour inside the Le Corbusier house in the 16th, for €5 on top of admission. French tours Tuesday to Saturday at 11am and 3pm; the English tour is on Tuesdays at 10am. Book online.

Book a visit

Montmartre · Before Moon Safari

A room, one night.

Godin tells of the night the sound arrived: a Rhodes, a bassline, Solina string pads and a Moog run through a delay. Switch them on.

The night, in his words

Silence. Switch the parts on, in any order.

A cream Paris apartment building with balconies on a sloping Montmartre street
Rue Lepic, Montmartre, 2017: the neighbourhood, not the room. Guilhem Vellut · CC BY 2.0

Montmartre · private

A room in Montmartre

Godin made the bassline of La femme d’argent in his room in Montmartre. The bass on La femme d’argent and Talisman is a Höfner. He names one or the other as the best song he ever recorded.

A private home with no published address. Named here, never mapped; the photograph shows a Montmartre street, not the room.

Sources
A round fountain in a small Paris square with trees and apartment buildings behind
Place Pigalle and its fountain, 2014. David McSpadden · CC BY 2.0

Place Pigalle, Paris 9e and 18e

Place Pigalle

Depeche Mode asked Air for a remix and paid well. With the money Godin went to Pigalle and bought a digital eight-track. Moon Safari’s basic tracks were recorded on a Fostex D80.

A public square at the foot of Montmartre.

Sources
Viator · Ad / affiliate

Montmartre walking tours

Paris 18e

Live marketplace results for walks round Montmartre and Pigalle. Check each itinerary for the streets you want.

Live marketplace results · itineraries change

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Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche · 1997 and 1999 to 2000

One house, two records.

Air rented a big old house from the 18th century in the forest. Sound On Sound calls it Studio de Saint-Nom: there the pair wrote Moon Safari and recorded its basic tracks on a Fostex D80, then added parts at Gang Studios in Paris.

Moon Safari: an eight-track, drum machines, a roomy sound.

The machine
A Fostex D80 digital eight-track
The sound
Ambient, roomy
The drums
Drum machines
Who came
Engineer Stéphane “Alf” Briat, a friend
Finished
Parts added at Gang Studios, Paris; strings at Abbey Road
The stone west front and bell tower of a small village church
The village church of Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche, 2017: the village, not the house. Pierre Poschadel · CC BY-SA 4.0

Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche · private

The house at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche

The Virgin Suicides was recorded there too, on an Akai DR16. Brian Reitzell’s drums sat further forward, and the sound was cleaner and less ambient than Moon Safari. Every week, tapes of sequences came from Los Angeles; Reitzell came over and played the drums.

A private house. Named here, never mapped; the photograph shows the village church, not the house.

Sources

Remember · with Jean-Jacques Perrey

One word, two machines.

For Remember they built the song round its title word: a talkbox on the verse, a vocoder on the chorus, after Kraftwerk but softer.

Remember

Sexy Boy nearly stayed off the album: it had a verse and a chorus, and the rest of the record did not. Kelly Watch the Stars is named after Kelly in Charlie’s Angels.

The songs
Jean-Benoît Dunckel at a keyboard on the left and Nicolas Godin with a bass guitar on the right, both in black, under magenta stage light
Air on the Talkie Walkie tour in Ferrara, 6 July 2004: Jean-Benoît Dunckel at the keyboards, Nicolas Godin on bass. Daniele Dalledonne · CC BY-SA 2.0

1997 to Late 2007

Away from the house.

Moon Safari came out on 16 January 1998 and reached number 6 in Britain. The work went where it needed to: London for strings, Hollywood to finish, and in the end a studio of their own.

The release
  1. The white Georgian front of Abbey Road Studios behind its low graffiti-covered wall
    Abbey Road Studios, St John’s Wood, 2025. Alvis Jean · CC BY-SA 4.0

    London · 1997

    Abbey Road Studios

    Moon Safari’s strings were recorded here, arranged by David Whitaker. Visitors may write a message on the front wall. The shop opens Monday to Saturday, 9.30am to 5.30pm, and Sunday 10am to 5pm.

    A working studio. Outside are the crossing and the wall you may write on; the shop is open Monday to Saturday 9.30am to 5.30pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm. St John’s Wood Tube is a few minutes’ walk.

    Sources
  2. A studio lot gate and buildings on a sunny Hollywood boulevard
    Sunset Gower Studios on Sunset Boulevard, beside 6050, in 2006. Gary Minnaert · Public domain

    Hollywood · 2004

    United Recording (Ocean Way)

    Nigel Godrich heard Talkie Walkie in progress, added ideas and took it to Ocean Way Studios in Hollywood to finish. Talkie Walkie came out in 2004, with the acoustic piano in front and strings arranged by Michel Colombier.

    The building opened as United Recording in 1958, became Ocean Way under Allen Sides, and reopened as United Recording in 2015.

    A working studio, not open to the public. See it from Sunset Boulevard.

    Sources

    In Los Angeles, during Talkie Walkie, they made Alone in Kyoto for Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

    Alone in Kyoto
  3. A long Paris street climbing uphill between apartment buildings
    Rue de Ménilmontant in the 20th arrondissement, 2015: the district, not the studio. Patrick Nouhailler · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Paris 20e · private

    Atlas Studio

    Air looked for their own premises from 2004 and finished Atlas Studio late in 2007, in a former warehouse area of the 20th arrondissement. About 20 keyboards are wired there into one mixer; Love 2 was begun there.

    A private studio. Named here, never mapped; the photograph shows a 20th-arrondissement street.

    Sources

2024 and 2025

Moon Safari, in full.

The 2024 shows were their first since 2017, and each played the whole album. These four halls are in 3 of this World’s 4 areas.

The return
A musician in white standing inside a glowing red, smoke-filled box on a dark stage with keyboards
Royal Albert Hall, 30 May 2024: Moon Safari played in full, inside a lit box on the stage. Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0
Two men in white suits bowing on a white-lit stage beside a drum kit
Godin and Dunckel take a bow at the Royal Albert Hall, 30 May 2024. Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0
A musician in white at a stack of keyboards inside a box of blue light
Keyboards in blue light, Royal Albert Hall, 30 May 2024. Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0

  1. 7 March 2024

    The red neon OLYMPIA sign over a Paris music-hall front on a boulevard
    The Olympia, 28 Boulevard des Capucines, 2009. Elliott Brown · CC BY 2.0

    L’Olympia

    28 boulevard des Capucines, Paris 9e

    Air played the Olympia on 7 March 2024, on the tour that played Moon Safari in full for the first time.

    A working music hall; the front is on Boulevard des Capucines.

    Sources

  2. 30 and 31 May 2024

    The round red-brick Royal Albert Hall under a pale sky
    The Royal Albert Hall from the Albert Memorial, 2012. Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Royal Albert Hall

    Kensington Gore, London SW7

    Air played Moon Safari here on two nights, 30 and 31 May 2024.

    Each show played the album in full, as the whole tour did.

    A working concert hall. See the hall’s own site for concerts and building tours.

    Sources

  3. 24 June 2024

    The silver, bird-scale cladding of the Philharmonie de Paris rising over a lawn
    The Philharmonie de Paris at La Villette, 2017. Guilhem Vellut · CC BY 2.0

    Philharmonie de Paris

    Parc de la Villette, 221 avenue Jean-Jaurès, Paris 19e

    On 24 June 2024 Air played all of Moon Safari here, at the Days Off festival.

    The Musée de la musique is in the same complex, at the Cité de la musique: €10 for the permanent collection, free for under-26s.

    Concert halls and the Musée de la musique in the Cité de la musique: permanent collection €10, free under 26. Métro Porte de Pantin.

    Sources

  4. 21 September 2025

    The white arched shell of the Hollywood Bowl in front of hills and the Hollywood sign
    The Hollywood Bowl with the Hollywood sign behind, 2024. Edwardrhodes06 · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Hollywood Bowl

    2301 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood

    Godin remembers a sold-out night at the Bowl that he was too worried to enjoy.

    On 21 September 2025 Air opened their North American Moon Safari tour here, with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

    An open-air amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills; see the Bowl’s own site for what is on.

    Sources

Nearly thirty years after a song for a system of measures, the same two men in white, in a lit box, playing the record from the house in the forest.

Visit

Where it is now

10 places you can visit in Versailles, Paris, London and Los Angeles. The house in the forest, the Montmartre room and Atlas are private: named, never mapped.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. An open square in front of the palace, free to walk across at any hour.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The Galerie des Sculptures et des Moulages is free, at weekends from 1 April to 31 October, 12.30 to 6.30pm (last entry 5.45pm). The architecture school itself is not open to visitors.

  1. A bronze equestrian statue on a tall plinth under a blue sky in front of the palace
    Place d’Armes, Versailles, with the statue of Louis XIV, in 2024. GFreihalter · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Place d’Armes, in front of the palace, Versailles

    Place d’Armes, Versailles

    Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel are both from Versailles.

    An open square in front of the palace, free to walk across at any hour.

    Sources
  2. A long pale stone wing of a seventeenth-century stable building with tall arched windows
    A wing of the Petite Écurie on Avenue Rockefeller, home of the Versailles architecture school, in 2026. iMahesh · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Avenue Rockefeller, facing the palace, Versailles

    Petite Écurie du Roi

    Godin studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles.

    The Galerie des Sculptures et des Moulages is free, at weekends from 1 April to 31 October, 12.30 to 6.30pm (last entry 5.45pm). The architecture school itself is not open to visitors.

    Sources

Stay

A room at the palace gates.

Le Grand Contrôle, across the square from the stable school.

Airelles

Le Grand Contrôle

Château de Versailles

A hotel inside the Château de Versailles estate, across the square from the stable where Godin studied: period rooms with garden views, a personal butler and picnics in the gardens.

See rooms

Go there

A Le Corbusier house, a gallery of casts, two neighbourhoods.

Maison La Roche and the Galerie des Moulages on their own terms; Montmartre and Versailles on the marketplace.

Fondation Le Corbusier

Maison La Roche guided visit

Paris 16e

An hour inside the Le Corbusier house in the 16th, for €5 on top of admission. French tours Tuesday to Saturday at 11am and 3pm; the English tour is on Tuesdays at 10am. Book online.

Book a visit
Château de Versailles

Galerie des Sculptures et des Moulages

Avenue Rockefeller, Versailles

Free, inside the Petite Écurie that the architecture school shares: weekends from 1 April to 31 October, 12.30 to 6.30pm, last entry 5.45pm.

Plan a visit
Viator · Ad / affiliate

Montmartre walking tours

Paris 18e

Live marketplace results for walks round Montmartre and Pigalle. Check each itinerary for the streets you want.

Live marketplace results · itineraries change

Compare tours
Viator · Ad / affiliate

Versailles tours

Versailles

Live marketplace results for the palace and the town. The Place d’Armes and the Petite Écurie face each other at the palace gates.

Live marketplace results · itineraries change

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What’s on

Inside Abbey Road at Christmas.

No Air date after today has been announced. Abbey Road’s own Christmas concert opens Studio One in December.

Checking current event dates…

Take it home

Two books, five records.

Sofia Coppola’s archive and the novel she filmed; the records from Premiers Symptômes to Talkie Walkie.

Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate

Archive

Sofia Coppola

Coppola’s own book of her work from 1999, the year of The Virgin Suicides, to 2023.

Find the book
Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate

The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides

The novel Coppola filmed, and Air scored.

Find the book
eBay · Ad / affiliate

Premiers Symptômes

Air · CD, Source, 1997

The early singles, the Modulor Mix among them.

Live marketplace search · listings and condition change

Find a copy
eBay · Ad / affiliate

Moon Safari

Air · CD, Source, 1998

Made in the house in the forest, with strings from Abbey Road. Out on 16 January 1998.

Live marketplace search · listings and condition change

Find a copy
eBay · Ad / affiliate

The Virgin Suicides

Air · CD, Record Makers REC-01, 2000

The film score, recorded in the same house.

Live marketplace search · listings and condition change

Find a copy
eBay · Ad / affiliate

10 000 Hz Legend

Air · CD, Source, 2001

The third album, and the start of their work with Beck.

Live marketplace search · listings and condition change

Find a copy
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Talkie Walkie

Air · CD, Virgin CDV 2980, 2004

Finished at Ocean Way on Sunset Boulevard with Nigel Godrich.

Live marketplace search · listings and condition change

Find a copy

Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.

The sources

Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.

13 of 13 places · 14 of 14 Moments

  • Place d’Armes, Versailles

    Place d’Armes, in front of the palace, Versailles

    • Orange

      Two from Versailles play together in Orange, then carry on as Air.

  • Petite Écurie du Roi

    Avenue Rockefeller, facing the palace, Versailles

    • Architecture

      Godin studies architecture in the king’s small stable.

  • A room in Montmartre

    Montmartre, Paris 18e: a private home

    • La femme d’argent

      The bassline is made in a room in Montmartre, on a Höfner.

  • Place Pigalle

    Place Pigalle, Paris 9e and 18e

    • The eight-track

      Remix money buys a digital eight-track in Pigalle.

  • Maison La Roche

    10 square du Docteur Blanche, Paris 16e

    • Modulor Mix

      Air’s first record: a song made for Le Corbusier’s system of measures.

  • The house at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche

    Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche, Yvelines: a private house

    • Moon Safari

      The album is written and its basic tracks recorded in a rented house in the forest.

    • The Virgin Suicides

      The film score for Sofia Coppola is recorded in the same house.

  • Abbey Road Studios

    3 Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, London NW8

    • Strings

      David Whitaker’s string arrangements are recorded at Abbey Road.

  • United Recording (Ocean Way)

    6050 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood

    • Talkie Walkie

      Nigel Godrich takes the album to Ocean Way to finish it.

  • L’Olympia

    28 boulevard des Capucines, Paris 9e

    • The Olympia

      Moon Safari in full in Paris.

  • Royal Albert Hall

    Kensington Gore, London SW7

    • Two nights in Kensington

      Moon Safari in full at the Royal Albert Hall.

  • Philharmonie de Paris

    Parc de la Villette, 221 avenue Jean-Jaurès, Paris 19e

    • Days Off

      Moon Safari in full at the Philharmonie.

  • Hollywood Bowl

    2301 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood

    • The Bowl

      The North American tour opens with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

  • Atlas Studio

    Paris 20e: a private studio with no published address

    • Atlas

      Their own studio opens in the 20th arrondissement.

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