JB DUNCKEL
H+
SONY FRANCE
While no one would accuse Jean-Benoît Dunckel of virtuesignalling – to adopt the contemporary vernacular – his latest solo album certainly excels at Air-signalling, as though he’s troubled that people might have forgotten what his day job is. Fair enough: 1998’s Moon Safari helped shift the ground under electronic music by pairing it with sophisticated, Bacharach-esque songwriting, and you’d want people to know you invented this, not assume that you were simply copying it. Twenty years later, however, a law of diminishing returns seems to apply: while Air had substance, H+ seems rather insubstantial.