Moon Safari

• Digital release of Dave Depper's cover album of Air's "Moon Safari"

"The edict from the record label (Turntable Kitchen) was simple enough: cover an iconic album from the late 90s in its entirety. I didn't have to do much thinking on it before deciding upon Air's "Moon Safari", a record as formative in my musical development as any Beatles album. It also provided a fun challenge: how do you "cover" a record that's nearly half instrumental? I enjoyed tweaking the sound palette quite a bit from the gauzy 60s to a more sleek 80s-flavored patina. Loops of lounge drums were replaced by a vintage Roland 707 drum machine. The ubiquitous vocoders had to go. Baroque acoustic pop grew some disco beats, and fuzz guitars roam the landscape here and there like predatory dinosaurs. Did I improve upon one of the greatest albums ever made? Of course not. But boy did I have a great time taking a swing at it."