Tracing the Echoes — How the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson Whisper Through Air’s Moon Safari

Following the recent passing of Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson, it seems befitting to not only remember him and the debt modern music owes him, but also to pinpoint a particular, maybe unexpected, example of his influence.

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When Moon Safari dropped in 1998, it felt like a message from another planet (or satellite thereof) - beamed in from a cool corner of the cosmos by a new wave of auteurs. What was it? As they say themselves "... alien, psychedelic, loungecore music you’d listen to on a Sunday morning after you’d been out clubbing the night before."

The debut album from French duo Air (Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel) shimmered with analog warmth, space-age romanticism, and the hazy bliss of a half-remembered dream. But beneath the vintage synths and lush orchestrations you’ll hear something unmistakably familiar: the dreamy echo of The Beach Boys.

It’s not that Air mimicked the surf-pop titans outright - Moon Safari is a thoroughly modern, European, electronic affair. But the influence of Brian Wilson and his bandmates is etched into the DNA of the album. You can hear it in the harmonics, the emotional clarity, the melodic purity. This isn’t coincidence - it’s lineage. It's how music works.

Oh and If you're in any doubt, bear in mind that Remember samples the drums from Do It Again.

Here's our take on it.

1. Lush Vocal Textures & Wordless Harmonies

The Beach Boys practically trademarked the use of wordless falsetto harmonies to convey emotion beyond language - and Air picked up that torch with reverent care. Tracks like La femme d’argent and Ce matin-là use human voices more as instrumentation than narrative, drawing on Wilson’s technique of layering sighs, coos and ooohs into an ambient, emotional fabric.

Much like Pet Sounds, Moon Safari is not a tranactional affair - it invites you to feel more than follow - to let the harmonics wash over you rather than anchor you in a story.

2. Baroque Pop Meets the Future

The orchestration on Moon Safari - think Arps, Moogs, strings and Wurlitzers - recalls the Beach Boys' mid-to-late '60s experimentalism, especially Pet Sounds and the infamous Smile sessions. Both Air and Wilson seemed to ask the same question: what if Bach grew up on acid in Los Angeles?

In Talisman, for instance, there’s a melancholy grandeur that mirrors the instrumental interludes on Pet Sounds. It’s cinematic, yes - but also intensely emotional, in the same way Let’s Go Away for Awhile aches with fragile sincerity.

3. Technicolor Melancholy

The emotional palette of Moon Safari swings between sunny daydreams and lonely reveries - exactly the zone where Wilson was most comfortable. There's a shared sensitivity in the way both Air and the Beach Boys explore happiness not as a static state but as a fleeting, delicate sensation.

Playground Love (from The Virgin Suicides, arguably Moon Safari's spiritual companion) could easily live alongside Surf’s Up or Forever - songs that disguise yearning and heartache behind angelic arrangements.

4. Studio as Instrument

Brian Wilson famously used the studio like a canvas - layering sound upon sound until songs became environments. Air followed that same ethos. You can hear it in the panning reverb, the analog synth warmth, the dry sound of the bass and Fender Rhodes sparkle.

This obsession with sonic detail is not just a nod to Wilson’s work - it’s a love letter.

5. Mood Over Message

Perhaps most telling is how Moon Safari, like Pet Sounds, transcends its lyrics. The meaning isn’t in the words, but in the moods - the tone, the arrangement, the breath between chords. It’s music for feeling, not decoding.

Air didn’t need to sing “God only knows what I’d be without you” to express vulnerability. Instead, they gave us All I Need - a simple melody wrapped in soft focus, letting the sound do the heavy emotional lifting.

Final Transmission

In the end, Moon Safari may not sound like the Beach Boys in any obvious way. There are no surf rhythms, no California sunshine. But the ethos? The emotional depth wrapped in sonic innovation? That’s Wilsonian to the core.

So yes, we’re calling it: Air must have listened - closely, deeply - to The Beach Boys. Not just Pet Sounds, but Friends, Surf’s Up, and The Smile Sessions too. And in doing so, they didn’t just revive a legacy - they reimagined a legend, floating it up into the stars.

Somewhere, Brian’s smiling.

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