Jean Michel Jarre* – Equinoxe

You can find this normally lurking in bargain bins for a few quid. Do yourself a massive favor and just buy it. Enjoy and love it ta bits. Stone cold classic.

Highly Recommend.

It took me a long time to love and avoid Jarre's music on equal - instead of just avoid. One thing that always annoyed me in his work are spectacular accentuations of what electronics can do. But then again, there is a "guilty pleasure" element in his music that cannot be underestimated. Considering a strange juxtaposition of mega-exposure/universal popularity and personal eccentricity, his earlier work is safe from harm of falling flat - either into pomposity or "stock music" category, although it is not entirely rid of electronic posturing.

Of the three crucial albums of his from the 1974-81 era - "Oxygene", "Equinoxe" and "Les Chants Magnétiques" - "Equinoxe" remains a favourite, ideal to play during winter's late night evenings or even more so especially when traveling. Besides Kraftwerk and Moroder, Jarre is equally responsible for the entire invasion of synth-pop that was bubbling about under the surface at the time - take one Orchestral Manoeuvres, for example (and they actually were named "Equinox" in one of their pre-OMD incarnations), as most of their symphonic sounds owe a great deal to Jarre alone.

As for "Equinoxe" - despite Jarre's usual conceptual nature, his sound inventiveness is often at odds with his music titles' non-inventiveness... The main title alone should stand on its own two feet, perfectly representative of the very music, so any lazy repeating of it in a "parts 1-8" mode is utterly redundant (an actual trademark of Jarre's). But of course this doesn't affect the quality of the very music. This is a truly enjoyable sound excursion with undeniable esoteric value attached to it - especially side one, while side two (with parts 4 and 5 in particular) proves to be more popular among listeners but in all, "Equinoxe" is best when experienced as a whole, without splicing between individual parts (as most of them audibly blend into one another to form a unified piece) - in that case, a vinyl version of this album is better choice than CD.

The only moment that partially goes off-topic on the entire album is on "part 8", during its Parisian l'accordéon-esque intro - while it's a nice little oddity in itself (that would sound perfect with a certain Juliette Greco on vocals), somehow this snippet sounds a bit forced into the whole as if marking composer's French temper... thankfully, the end of "Equinoxe" doesn't succumb further into sound shunting as the theme progresses towards the end, but returns to a melody variation similar to "Part 4" which gives it all a nice "scrolling credits" signature, successfully closing the album.

You can probably find this album all over the world for $1 in bargain bins at your local record store. Do yourself a favor and just buy it, bring it home and listen to it. You will never spend a better $1 in your life

I blame this and oxygene for sparking my interest in electronic music at the ripe old age of 10-ish. 38 now and this still gets me. Timeless.

Part 1: Every time I hear this, I picture a life being born and growing quickly into an active young body, and moving through time into maturity, and then peaking and falling into old age and slowing down until death. Sad but true. Beautiful!