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For decades French pop was the supreme Euro-joke, the essence of naffness. At least, it was through British eyes. The enmity between the British and the French maybe explains why the Brits have only just realised that Serge Gainsbourg was a genius, or that "ye ye" rock and roll on this side of the Channel was more than dear old Johnny Halliday. Let’s face it, les Brits were happier to cozy up to Krautrockers than to consider that the French might have something to offer electropop beyond Jean-Michel Jarre.

Much of this has to do with the very different sociological emphases placed upon pop music in Britain and France. Whereas music in Britain has always been about the disenfranchised proletariat finding a voice, in France pop music is a more bourgeois pursuit. It is no surprise that both Air and Daft Punk, the leading lights in French art-dance pop, hail from privileged backgrounds, and that neither is afraid of articulating the more theoretical ideas behind their music. In post-Oasis Britain, meanwhile, there remains a deep fear of intelligence in pop culture.

Modular duo Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel certainly need no reminding that French pop has long been a bit of a joke. But with the brilliant Moon Safari, they show they are in on the sniggering and able to transmute Eurokitsch into charming, dreamlike art.

Armed with a battery of ancient Moog synthesizers in their quaint cottage of a Versailles studio, they celebrate the innocent wonder of futuristic electro-pop, above all on the heavenly "Kelly, Watch The Stars" but also on the cheesy instrumentals "Le Voyage De Penelope" and "New Star In The Sky." Imagine Hot Butter's "Popcorn" grafted onto Kraftwerk's The Man Machine and you'll have some idea of the treasures within.

It's not all Mo'Wax chic and Stereolab oscillation, though. The acoustic-guitar-laden "All I Need" and "You Make It Easy" are mercilessly accurate pastiches of Eurovision Song Contest balladry, fluted in Parisian English by American singer Beth Hirsch. An in-joke for Transatlantic admirers? Well, why not?

There's also a dash of Bacharach-meets-Morricone lushness on "Ce Matin La," complete with throbbing harmonicas and warbling horns (French ones, naturally), plus the jazz-funky noodling of the opening "La Femme d'Argent."

As soft and serene and a pastoral spacewalk, Moon Safari is faintly silly and strangely moving, all at the same time.

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