Electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre has introduced EON, a new generative music application for iOS.
The application creates constantly changing music, composed by Jarre, paired with digital graphics by Alexis André of Sony Computer Science Laboratories.
Here’s what Jarre has to say about it:
“« EON » is an ancient Greek God associated with Time & Eternity.
The « time » represented by EON is infinite and unbounded in the sense of « ages » and « forever ».
In cosmology, geology or astronomy, EON is often used in reference to a period of a billion years…
I named this project EON, as it best defines exactly what it is – an infinite musical and visual creation, which offers each individual a unique experience on its primary support as an App: on each device, and on each launch of the EON App, you will hear and see a unique ever-evolving orchestration of the music & the visuals. EON is a never ending, never repetitive, organic art-piece that will live & grow forever in everyone’s own singular space-time continuum, at the tip of their finger.
Personally, I truly feel that EON is probably one of my most exciting creative projects since Oxygene. I always wanted to create a music specific for each listener and which could constantly evolve. Here it is. EON is conceived & composed for your own infinite journey.
I had a very clear idea of the organic, living visuals I wanted to accompany my music creation, and I was very lucky to have spent some time in Tokyo at Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. (Sony CSL) where I found Alexis André and his singular visual world. Sony CSL with Alexis have conceived and developed an algorithm generating the endless flow of ever-evolving graphics, which like the music is never ending, nor repetitive.
The algorithm and audio engine that orchestrates the music of the EON App have been engineered by Alexis Zbik & Vianney Apreleff from BLEASS after we defined the rules of the system together.”
Here’s the official intro from Jarre:
Pricing and Availability
EON is available now for $8.99 USD.
Update: Removed unofficial demo and added offiical intro from Jarre.
What a load of dookie.
It sounds rather repetitive to me. I prefer Electroplankton.
DJ Puzzle needs to remember to plug in the power when making a video to keep from appearing unprofessional.
Give me a break! Posting this insults ones intelligence!!
Terrible video – around 2:12 a “Low Battery” warning pop-ups appears and doesn’t go away for about 2mn. Didn’t nobody even check this for quality? Much as I’m not so impressed by the app, poor demos clearly don’t do it any favours!!
I’m a big fan of JMJ, but I’m a bit dubious on this one. The concept of “active” listening to me is,sit down, and do NOTHING BUT actually focusing your mind on the music you’re listening, an activity which tends to get forgotten nowadays. Twiddling with your phone actually takes you away from that process, be the twiddling related to the music generated or not. Music listening is about channelling emotions and energy through the sense of hearing, and any process that calls for the use of other senses breaks the true and pure listening experience.
I understand the will of certain artists to come up with new musical experiences but this has, and will probably never work for me.
“I truly feel that EON is probably one of my most exciting creative projects since Oxygene.”
I am so sorry to hear that….
nice music and i iked the movments on screen
Dire…
I think JMJs recent albums have been a real disappointment … I heard Equinoxe Infinity for the first time the other day and couldn’t make it through the whole album… maybe it’s just me… I still love his first 3 albums but I just don’t get it anymore… this phone app adventure just seems another desperate roll of the dice… I think I’ll give this one a miss.
It’s not you. I find all of his stuff is fairly unlistenable. Not a fan of ‘generative’ music – or anything without a recognizable melody, harmony, and rhythm – it all just sounds like background noise for a commercial. Eno’s apps are a little better – they’re much more simplistic.
who will win the race to the bottom, Jarre or Eno??? stay tuned!!! (or not)
Eno’s “the ship” just came out 3 years ago and is the best thing he’s done in many years. He still seems engaged and (mostly) like he’s pushing himself. Jarre only trades on his legacy. Besides the fact that they’ve both made generative music apps, (Eno having made one of the first ever), they have very little in common.
BTW, always worthwhile to listening to some of his dad’s work, Maurice Jarre, lots of really famous film music: Ghost, Dead Poets Society, Dr Zhivago, Laurence of Arabia, Witness, a Passage to India, to name but a few – this kid had big shoes to fill!!
need to turn up the chaos parameters and vary the 4/4 beats more
The Maestro simply can’t win. I loved Zoolook but his New Age fans hated it and wanted him to return to the first two well known albums style that they could play during group meditation sessions during retreats. He pressed on though and released other albums. Rendez-Vous I felt was his first one that didn’t enthrall me, though the concept was fantastic and he still holds the record for the largest audience at a concert in the United States. I liked Chronologie and even tried to get one of those special Swatch watches with the beep pattern he wrote. Métamorphoses was good as well. There were a bunch of actually bad ones though around this time that seemed to stem from the bad luck he was having with high profile women at the time such as that album that featured a cover showing the private parts of his lady friend. I get it as an art piece but the music was not interesting to me.
Eventually he got the message and went back to revisit earlier more New Age styles. This pleased some of this crowd, mostly much older fans, and I liked those albums, but didn’t win many new ones. Then there’s also the collaboration albums, great concept, pieces are OK.
I think he did best when he was moving forward on his own terms and pushing the envelope. When he revisits the past or gets distracted by what other people want then he doesn’t do so good.
He is excellent, the best in history, at gigantic shows played on the world stage with live audiences of 1-4 million. He also has sponsored many interesting instrument designs and partnered with instrument designers.
This app here was pioneered by a track on Waiting for Cousteau, which had a generative composition. He would play that as a preamble to concerts back then and it could play as long as necessary and never repeat. Generated music doesn’t sound the same as thorough composed music. Whether it will eventually who knows. However generated music can give a run for the money of a lot of doodly albums where the composer is just fooling around on a theme but structure is missing. To advance generative music to where it’s more interesting one has to experiment. I see this here as he is back to experimenting and doing his own thing and ignoring fans and critics. And that is good.
“However generated music can give a run for the money of a lot of doodly albums where the composer is just fooling around on a theme but structure is missing. ” – to me this empitomizes the entire eurorack music scene. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Does anyone remember the Swarm screen saver? Use that as a color organ. You do remember what a color organ is, don’t you? Or are you unaware of any time before smart ‘phones?
Dude, I totally built my own Color Organ from Lafayette Radio Electronics! Remember them?
I was going to weigh in, but I put on “Music For Airports” and remembered that my opinion only weighs a 16th of an ounce.
I guess this should be seen more as a recording release than an app?
So he has composed music with random/changing elements so that the “record” always sound slightly different but it is still composed by him?
In a way I think that idea is kind of neat, not sure if he really delivered on it though…
But I didn’t see any interactive parameters so I guess this should not be viewed as an interactive music making app, it should be viewed as an album where parts of the music is composed with changing variables.
I can’t believe they released that video without checking it through? .. or was that some sly marketing gimmick to increase the viral circulation? Either way, it’s cheap and crap and not something you would expect from big names like Jarre and Sony.
I remember when my dad brought home Oxygene… in the late 70’s – and I was spellbound by the velvety textures and gorgeous production and ideas. It was the start of my “formal listening” in electronic music. This was a few years before being introduced to Wendy Carlos’s works in ’81 or so, then Tangerine Dream, etc. I was in other sonic territories for at least a decade as I bought my first synth, and started building up my home studio at 16(?) around end of ’82.
Zoolook was one of the first CD’s I’d bought, along with “Security” by Peter Gabriel. Zoolook, I thought – MANY fantastic ideas/territories – but certain tracks aged far better, whereas Equinox, Oxygene, and Magnetic Fields always feel timeless, somehow.
It’s rare than ANY artist does work which will consistently wow any long-term audience. That’s a given. So when Jarre was performing in NYC, it was – perhaps – the one and only chance to see him… And, although some bits musically dragged here and there, overall he gave a fantastic performance and I enjoyed some the things he was playing with (like Pet Shop Boys, etc)
Jarre’s history, contributions, personal politics, and ability to branch into new ideas is wonderfully admirable. He has an immense body of great works, but – much like Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream, that doesn’t guarantee long-term sustainable consistency for any one fan (perhaps). I have no need for ANOTHER app – but I love his ability to keep trying new things. That’s what being human is about… In art, or life… Right?