Jean Michel Jarre

fellowship

Jean Michel Jarre is a tremendous musical artist. Oxygene released in 1976 is truly ahead of the age. I was curious if Powerdoc is aware of this musical artist and what his opinion is of this master is. Also if anyone in the forum is aware of Jean Michel Jarre. I am truly in a place of awe with this master of musical art.



Please respond with your thoughts of Jean Michel Jarre and his Oxygene project. If you have not heard his work I advise you locate his work as soon as you can. He is a master with no compare.



<a href="http://www.jarre.com/"; target="_blank">Jarre Link 01</a>



<a href="http://www.jarre.net/"; target="_blank">Jarre Link 02</a>



Fellowship



[ 12-10-2002: Message edited by: FellowshipChurch iBook ]</p>

matlock

He is truly great. Oxygene is as much a technical wonder for its time as it is a simply great song. Many think of electronic music as just a dance beat and nothing else. Jarre and other acts like Kraftwerk, the pioneers of electronics, were great melodists and songwriters. The same is true today for Orbital and others.



Back to Oxygene, I'm not sure what was the state of synthesizer in 76, but it wasn't easy stuff. I remember an interview with Pete Townshend about the making of Who's Next (1971). He spent days if not weeks to get the electronic sound at the beginning of Won't Get Fooled Again. He had a box with switches and knobs that he had to adjust and once he was satisfied he couldn't save it: he had to record it on audio tapes immediately. It was probably easier for Jarre as keyboard were evolving and electronic components becoming more common. But I don't know when the first digital synth appeared.



Anyway I getting off topic Oxygene is a classic and if you didn't know it was 25 years old, you couldn't guess. He pushed back the limits of technology and we're grateful he did!

powerdoc

Yes i know Jean Michel Jarre. Oxygen was great. Know JM Jarre is specialized in big events : more than on million peoples concerts. (giant concert in the Mount Saint michel, in russia, in front the China's wall, in front of the eiffel tower ...). I am less impressed by his actual work , than by his previous release.

Oxygene was and is still really great. His actual work did not evolve much in my way.

mac the fork

I have Oxygene, but I haven't listened to it. I bought it about a year ago while looking for strange records.



Right now, I'm listening to Spaced by Soft Machine, which might be considered a bit avant garde. There are no synthesizers, but there are some hardcore analogue sounds coming from the organ: sweeping with a wah-wah pedal, ring modulator-like sounds via a distortion pedal, hiss and clicks from the electronics and pitch bending with what I believe was the 'Hawaiian guitar' feature. There are also a lot of tape loops going at various speeds. Plus there are some sampled percussion loops and even a bit of rudimentary 'scratching'. It's dissonant, but it was probably pushing the limits in 1969.

moogs

JMJ made (not sure if he's still making music?) some excellent music during his heyday. Took a lot of his inspiration from Tangerine Dream.



FCiB, if you want to be really impressed, pick up a copy of Underwater Sunlight or Architecture in Motion from the latter group. Optical Race is an excellent CD as well.



And a third artist you'll want to listen to is Patrick O'Hearn. His older stuff is a little more compelling than his works from the last 3-5 years, but either way if you like JMJ you'll probably get a lot of listening out of most TD and O'Hearn CDs.



If you want something a little more edgy or industrial sounding, try CDs from Monolake - a group Sizzle Chest introduced me too earlier this year in another AI thread.



And FINALLY,



Does anyone know that Nissan commercial where there are two guys recording the sounds of the car, and then they go back to their studio and mix them into a real tune? They seem somewhat like a couple guys recently interviewed in MacAddict and I thought the clip from the commercial was pretty cool. Real duo or no?

defiant

I know JMJ. have some vinyls of him too.

toebwon

WOW, I didn't think anybody else knew who this guy was. I remember listening to him many years ago.It was,and still is, very cool tunes. Speaking of which,what about Mike Oldfield-"Tubular Bells" anyone ever hear that one?

kwondo

I began listening to him about 20 years ago. My favorite is ZOOLOOK. I had this whole story in my head to go with this album. I wanted to see if I could get in touch with him. (I was in a wishful thinking daze in high school.)



Funny thing is that Six degrees of separation kicked in. My close friend, whom I met here in NYC from 10 years ago, is now related by his family's marriage into Maurice Jarre. I suppose I could revert back to my daze. Plus, I had a separate infatuation with Charlotte Rampling, before they got married. Talk about the planets aligning together.

powerdoc

[quote]Originally posted by Toebwon:

<strong>WOW, I didn't think anybody else knew who this guy was. I remember listening to him many years ago.It was,and still is, very cool tunes. Speaking of which,what about Mike Oldfield-"Tubular Bells" anyone ever hear that one?</strong><hr></blockquote>



I have just own and heard Tubalar bell 2 from the same musician : nice stuff indeed.

sizzle chest

Hey, I missed this topic when it first appeared. I have always loved Jarre, and his work is a big influence on me as well (though my own music is much less structured).



Oxygene is still my favorite, but all his albums are worth owning -- though I've heard that his latest is a bit... different.

sizzle chest

Oh, and Jarre fans might enjoy the music of Alpha Wave Movement, especially the first album TRANSCENDENCE. It's hard to find, but the guy behind AWM admits the influence of Jarre and there's a definite similarity.



Another good one that's easier to find it Global Commmunication's album 76:14 -- a bit more ambient, though.

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by Toebwon:

<strong>WOW, I didn't think anybody else knew who this guy was. I remember listening to him many years ago.It was,and still is, very cool tunes. Speaking of which,what about Mike Oldfield-"Tubular Bells" anyone ever hear that one?</strong><hr></blockquote>



<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />



Hope you are over 20 and meant that as a joke. If not then what you said would be like my 7 yearm old nephew asking me if I had heard about someone called Madonna or a band called U2

matlock

[quote]Originally posted by Anders the White:

<strong>Hope you are over 20 and meant that as a joke. If not then what you said would be like my 7 yearm old nephew asking me if I had heard about someone called Madonna or a band called U2 </strong><hr></blockquote>



You're absolutely right. Tubular Bells is still one of the best selling albums of all time, at more than 20 millions sold worldwide, and still counting. The history of TB is quite interesting. Oldfield had recorded it using the little free time a studio had. He played every single d*** instrument himself, at the age of 19 I think. No label cared, except one guy, Richard Branson, who fell literally in love with the piece. So much that he decided to create a label specifically to release Tubular Bells, Virgin Records. To use a cliche, the rest is history.



And Tubular Bells is amazing by the way



I was really disappointed though by TB2 and TB3. But you can't expect him to top such a masterpiece!

mac the fork

I have some stuff by Kevin Ayers (from the Soft Machine ) featuring a (17-year-old?) Mike Oldfield on bass and electric guitar. He's really good at rock-type stuff too.