Electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre has release his 22nd studio album, Oxymore.
Jarre says that Oxymore is his most ambitious project to date. It’s described as “an extremely conceptual work, dedicated to late French composer Pierre Henry.”
Jarre and Henry had plans for a collaboration for Jarre’s album Electronica, but Henry died before it was completed. After Henry’s death, his widow gave Jarre the stems of material that had been prepared for this collaboration. Jarre used this material as the foundation of Oxymore.
The album has been conceived as an immersive work, in a multi-channel and 3D binaural version. Sound On Sound says that “Oxymore demonstrates that immersive audio isn’t just an extension of stereo. It’s a genuinely new medium with infinite creative potential.”
“It is truly a tribute to the roots of the French electronic music & electroacoustic music, which had a major influence on my early studies at the GRM and really how we are producing music today,” notes Jarre. “The soul of the album is also a tribute to Pierre Henry, who was one of the foundational 20th century giants of electronic music: he explored solfeggio notes v’s noise bites in audio spatialization before it was thought of. Pierre Henry inspired me to create an album using the old analog techniques I studied, but linked to the future by using spatial audio technique already and foremost at the composition stage.”
Oxymore is available now in CD, Vinyl and digital formats.
Absolutely amazing sound scapes. It’s not album of tracks, it’s an long audio conceptual track. Don’t like all visuals and graphics.
But really very strong, difficult and interesting piece of art, not for all.
Do you like Trentemoller, Blaimstrain, Tipper, Younger Brothers? If you do, than Oxymore is for you.
Need listen from start to end with good sound source (studio monitors/ audio monitors)
Oh woa. THis is the stuff me likes. Thank you!
I really love JMJ.
He has the ability to combine music with technology in a unique style.
I am shuddering every time I listen to Oxygene, Equinoxe or The Concerts in China.
But I am rather dissapointed from the recent JMJ’s work.
To be fair, I have not listen the whole Oxymore album but this YouTube part only.
I can hear all this amazing music technology but I really miss the MUSIC inside it.
I miss the melodies, the phrases, the harmonies, the transitions, the characteristics that make a musical piece remembered and unforgettable.
That’s a fun track. I appreciate Pierre Henry’s widow providing stems of his work. Many artists take avant-garde turns later in their careers, so this feels like an exotic bookend for “Oxygene.” It makes sense that Jarre would want to collaborate with Henry. Its too bad that he ended up just being a unique sample set and not a live player in the video.
Hi. For once a record by Jean-Michel Jarre that I find interesting. Very good suprise.
Have you heard Jean-Michel Jarre’s collaboration with Gary Numan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-WgH1X2QSw
A new Jean-Michel Jarre Album? Surely a contradiction in terms.
He sounds fresher than he has in quite some time.
Brilliant
I don’t know, This sounds a lot like the stuff I was trying not to do when I first got an MPC Live II.