Album Review: Nicolas Godin - Contrepoint

As one half of Air, Nicolas Godin has consistently drawn from an exotic cache of French pop, soundtracks and easy listening influences.

Here, on his debut solo album, he's added classical music into the mix as each of the eight tracks on Contrepoint uses a different Bach melody as a "jumping off point". Contrepoint's originality is distinctive and the vocal, piano and strings of Clara, utterly beguiling, but as good as Godin is in his own right, the absence of his usual Air partner Jean-Benoît Dunckel is felt.