Air - The Virgin Suicides Redux [White]

Air's score for The Virgin Suicides returns as The Virgin Suicides Redux, pressed here on limited white vinyl.

Written for Sofia Coppola's debut feature, the soundtrack first came out in 2000 as the French duo's second album, a moody, slow-motion follow-up to Moon Safari. Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel swapped that record's sunny lounge-pop for something hazier and more haunted, drawing on 1970s rock, film music and analogue synths to match the film's dreamy, sun-faded suburban melancholy. The Redux edition revisits it for the album's 25th anniversary.

Playground Love is the standout, a slow-dance ballad sung by Thomas Mars of Phoenix under the alias Gordon Tracks, all sleepy saxophone and soft-focus longing. Highschool Lover replays that melody in a gentler instrumental form, while Bathroom Girl and Dead Bodies lean into the score's darker, more unsettling side, with eerie keys and slow-building tension.

The album long ago outgrew its film to become a cult favourite in its own right, a go-to soundtrack for late nights and grey, rainy afternoons, and it still sounds like nothing else in the duo's catalogue. The white pressing has a clean, ghostly look that suits the music, and it makes an elegant counterpart to Moon Safari in any collection.