At the forefront of this unlikely phenomenon is Air, whose eagerly awaited second album, “10,000 Hz Legend,” comes out this week. “We are conscious of our bad pop-music history, so it’s OK if you make fun of us,” says Air’s cofounder Nicolas Godin, 31, in a thick French accent. “But it made it less frightening for us when we made our last two albums. French music was so bad, it was easy to raise the quality levels.”

But Air rises far above its predecessors with “10,000 Hz Legend.” The duo mix the disturbing ambience of Radiohead with the uninhibited goofiness of vintage Parisian pop. The result is a futuristic blast of retro fun that’s introspective and escapist. Though the duo do refer to “10,000 Hz Legend” as a concept album (a space-age love story? the battle of man against machine? too many late nights in the studio?), they counter the depressive and claustrophobic feel of heady art rock with tongue-in-cheek lyrics about love, sex and more sex. This penchant for blending the clever and absurd even inspired them to collaborate on one track with rock’s master alchemist, Beck.

Air’s mix-and-match mind-set fueled its sublime debut, “Moon Safari”–a critically acclaimed record that put Air on the map in 1998 and went on to sell 1 million copies worldwide–and its eclectic follow-up project, the soundtrack to director Sofia Coppola’s “Virgin Suicides.” “In America, especially in the beginning, we were associated with easy listening,” says Godin’s 31-year-old partner, Jean-Benoit Dunckel. “Very light and nice. But really, we are tortured men,” he says with a wry smile. “We wanted to surprise people with this album by doing something dark and very scary, then suddenly, something more happy and funny. We have to balance the nasty aspect of Air with the cooler, chill-out aspect of Air. We need opposition and conflict to make it work.”

And apparently to get dressed in the morning. The two show up for this interview wearing the following mishmash of clothing: maroon slacks, Converse high tops, an orange polyester sweat jacket, a pink button-down cowboy shirt and a bright green ascot. Yet it works because they are masters of marrying disparate elements and making them seem like long-lost coordinates. They also have a knack for throwing things together at the last minute and creating an impromptu masterpiece. “Everything comes from improvisation,” says Godin, who is seated in a conference room inside the offices of the New York label that distributes Air’s albums. “When we come into the studio, we have no precise ideas. We have no sensibility for hanging on to things, planning, making it perfect. We simply feel a sensation that’s cool and beautiful, and forget how it is supposed to be played. We just record what we feel in that moment. We keep it dirty. We keep it pure.”

The down-and-dirty duo hooked up in high school in Versailles, forming the guitar band Orange. They sent out tapes to various record companies, were quickly rejected and finally split when school ended. They reunited in 1995 during the electronic-music explosion. “We were able to make music the way we wanted,” says Godin. “Before that, you had to be a star with a record company, or forget it. When electronic music arrived, it was cool to take a chance again.”

Air is now giving other French artists a chance by starting its own label and signing Parisian newcomers such as Sebastien Tellier. But the duo have not gone the dreaded route of the professional artist or record-biz mogul. They still work with ancient equipment in a small, unassuming Parisian studio. “After we became successful, we had the money to record in a proper studio,” says Godin. “But we don’t want comfortable conditions at work. Like Picasso when he was rich and powerful and world known, his studio was the same as it was in his beginning. He did not change his way of working. We work in a very cheap studio. Our ambitions are very high, and our surrounding very low. We want to make beautiful music from that.”

Air'10,000 Hz Legend’ Astralwerks