Just before this past weekend, Joel Karlsson and Henrik Markstedt, otherwise known as Air France, delivered "It Feels Good to Be Around You". Smooth, agile, warm and easy, it's a stand-alone track as familiar in feel as it is sound, almost as if the Gothenberg-based Balear-i-deers hadn't actually been on hiatus for the past two years. Sincerely Yours posted an interview along with the track wherein the twosome fielded questions ranging from the somewhat loopy ("Why are you so ineffective?") to slightly loopier ("Why don't you just give up?") to straight-forward ("Will you play live?"). In addition to shedding light on all of that, they discussed the particulars of the song itself. Mixed by Mancunian producer Star Slinger, "It Feels Good to Be Around You" features a vocal hook from "Tiny", current girlfriend to Markstedt. Tiny's voice dances in and out of focus, often swapped out for seconds at a time for a flinty, manipulated vocal sample from elsewhere. It's a new wrinkle, but tie that all together with a surefire steel-drum melody and some free-swinging synths and you have a song that scans like a band getting re-acquainted with itself and what it does best. It's a song about "love from a distance," they say, "it is sunny, of course." - P4K
For nearly six minutes, Hansen creates a soundscape that's understated but undeniable. It broods and shoegazes while offering mounds of sensuality in its basslines and percussion. Hansen has called the songs from Dive "artifacts from a future." While his world-of-tomorrow arrangements justify the boast, there's still something familiarly melancholic in those synths that could evoke someone's past, as the shimmer and echoes invite listeners to attach their own memories to the song's self-contained universe. - P4K
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