
Jean Michel Jarre – Equinoxe IV (1981) [video] - pmoriarty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsxMRz477jM
======
wazoox
For the electronic music geeks, JMJ presents the gear he used to make this
album: [https://youtu.be/ctOhwRGdVvo](https://youtu.be/ctOhwRGdVvo)

About the "matrisequencer" and "digisequencer": the matrisequencer was
conceived and built by Michel Geiss, an engineer who worked with Jarre for
more than 20 years, from discreet components. It was horribly complex and
expensive.

In the early 90s, Geiss rebuilt it anew as the "digisequencer", with a tactile
interface driving an Atari ST and using MIDI instead of CV/gate.

The matrisequencer was only hand-built once; IIRC however the digisequencer
software and design may have been publicly available at some point and several
may have been built.

~~~
raverbashing
And today all of this fits inside a computer. Amazing

~~~
bborud
Kind of. As others have mentioned, the way you play an instrument is pretty
important. It isn't hard to see the difference between playing a real harp and
playing its software analog (no pun intended) on a keyboard. It may be a bit
harder to understand how an actual modular synth is different if you have
never spent any time playing one.

Of course, the software based synths are more practical and easy to deal with
since you can automate everything easily, things are reliable, never go out of
tune and you can fit an obscene amount of sound-generation into a small
device. Not to mention that your DAW will give you a lot more flexibility than
those old monster mixing desks gave you.

I also think the limitations are important. While Jarre's setup from way back
when may have looked impressive, it is still extremely limited compared to
what even amateurs have available to them today. So he had to make everything
count.

(If you want an interesting counterpoint: Deadmau5 mostly makes music by
editing MIDI on a computer -- still, he has 2-3 huge modular analog synths.
Hans Zimmer actually plays keyboards and mostly composes orchestral works, but
he still uses modulars from time to time)

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, using the actual device gives some artistic freedom that's hard to
control with a mouse and keyboard.

Though you could try mapping some of it to a Midi instrument that allows for
things like pitch bend (not sure if it's possible though)

~~~
bborud
You can get a lot of MIDI to CV/Gate interfaces today, and some modulars even
let you manage presets so you can at least store parameter values. But I think
the hands-on experience of playing the instrument is important. Of rewiring it
as you go, of having happy accidents when you plug the wrong wire into the
right socket.

Even something as seemingly inconsequential as the physical resistance in a
knob can make a difference. For instance, I have one synth that has a very
light filter cutoff knob and one that has a slow and heavy one. This tiny bit
of tactile difference invites different kinds of uses. The light knob invites
me to flick it rapidly -- the heavy one doesn't invite that kind of playing so
you end up sweeping it more slowly.

I think the best example I've seen was a friend of mine playing a Doepfer Dark
Energy synthesizer using a Dark Time sequencer. You can make the sequencer
skip and jump by flipping switches to make it repeat a section or restart the
sequence etc. So with without changing the pattern at all he made this entire
performance just by creatively messing with the timing and playback.

This hadn't really occurred to me when playing similar instruments on a
computer before. You would have had to make a very conscious decision to do
exactly what he did in the software, but given the physical interface of the
sequencer, this came naturally.

------
secure
Fans of Jean-Michel Jarre often also like:

Tangerine Dream (DE): My favorite recordings are Logos and Poland (both live
recordings), but there’s many other great ones, e.g. Force Majeure, Phaedra,
Quinoa, …

Redshift (UK): Love almost every single album they made. My all-time favorites
are Redshift Wild 3, Redshift Wild 2, and Wild (all live recordings).

Peter Baumann (DE): I particularly like the first few tracks of Romance '76.

If anyone shares my taste, please please please post some more
recommendations! :)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Isao Tomita. Classical music mostly played on a Moog, with an increasing
collection of supporting polysynths as the years went by.

Everything up to The Ravel Album is great.

Tomita probably ranks as the only true Moog virtuoso sound designer. Literally
nobody else used the instrument quite so creatively, or produced such an
incredible range of distinctive sounds with it.

This sounds like a recipe for cheese, but it's anything but. Everyone who
owns, uses, or is even slightly interested in modular synthesizers should hear
his albums.

~~~
bananaboy
Tomita's music is fantastic. I love his version of Holst's The Planets. I
haven't listened to his music in years though, so I just now found out he
passed away last year!

------
jwdunne
Jean Michel Jarre was an early musical love of mine, which says a lot since
I'm only 26.

I could not believe that, when I first heard it, Oxygene II was recorded in
the 70s. With a simple, small multitrack recorder.

It honestly is a great example of using simple and minimal components to
create something that ultimately sounds far more wonderful and complex as a
whole. It's not to say that complex is good, it's more that the simplicity
coming across as complex is awesome.

For me, II captures that but, despite how great they are, the others in
Oxygene don't quite hit it like II does.

Check it out!

~~~
lucio
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q00HQwO2Sg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q00HQwO2Sg)

~~~
lucio
My order was Vangelis, then JMC, then The Alan Parsons P.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q00HQwO2Sg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q00HQwO2Sg)

~~~
zerothlaw
Same progression for me with a smattering of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream,
then branching to Jean Luc Ponty - I heard Pulstar on Albedo 0.39 and was
hooked.

~~~
jacquesm
If you like Jean-Luc Ponty check out Alan Holdsworth (also played with Ponty
on a number of tracks), Pat Metheny, Paul Winter, Leomoon, Return to Forever,
John Abercrombie.

~~~
jwdunne
Thank you and the parent. GP's suggestions were pretty much the road I was on
but clearly lost my way. Think there's more than enough here for a nice work
commute playlist :)

------
a3n
That's a lot of knobs. _Knobs_ are the ultimate general purpose machine. They
can make music, or macaroni. Knobs can also make knobs, which accelerates our
ability to make knobs. Artificial dexterity running on cheap knobs will one
day force us to deal with a world without work.

Sounds great too.

~~~
chris_st
Your comment is hilarious, but as I deal with UIs a lot, the sheer complexity
of all those knobs kind of astounds me that he can deal with it all, _and in
real time_ to make music.

Wow.

I've loved his music since the late 70's, it's great to hear it again.

~~~
dfox
Loads of physical knobs is the most intuitive UI for this kind of thing. You
can find the control you want to tweak by combination of it's position and
touch very fast and in many cases without purposefully looking at the thing.

When we tried to build touch based mixing/lighting console (large capacitive
touch panels were significantly cheaper than loads of physical knobs and
motorized faders even ~5 years ago) we found this out very fast and scrapped
the whole project.

For synthesizer control, people probably aren't that dependent on using it
without looking, but the part of quickly finding what you want to tweak still
stands.

~~~
chris_st
> _You can find the control you want to tweak by combination of it 's position
> and touch very fast and in many cases without purposefully looking at the
> thing._

I really wish car makers would rediscover this fact.

------
droithomme
This was the first western pop music concert in China. Wham claims their 1985
concert was the first, that is not correct as this predated it by 4 years.
Also, Jarre was invited by the Chinese government to play, unlike Wham he did
not have his publicists petitioning for it. He had gone over to a university
there to meet students and show them synthesizer technology. He even left some
schematics so they could build their own.

It was also said to be the most widely listened to live broadcast in history,
with over 1 billion listeners, though this is tricky to confirm.

~~~
coldtea
> _This was the first western pop music concert in China. Wham claims their
> 1985 concert was the first, that is not correct as this predated it by 4
> years._

Well, Jarre is not exactly pop music though. Not compared to Wham!

~~~
teh_klev
Well, Oxygene reached number two in the UK album charts and Oxygene IV was a
hit single reaching number 4 in the UK singles charts. Those were popular
music charts, and back then there was a much wider variety of genres of music
occupying the top 40's, especially in the UK. I was ~11 years old and for a
while you couldn't avoid Jarre on the radio and Top of The Pops.

~~~
coldtea
Sure, but "pop music" is also used as a stylistic term, not just about mere
popularity. Some jazz and classical works have been on the top-40, but that
doesn't make them "pop music" in the first sense.

Wham, however, where a pure 80s pop group, if there ever was one.

------
mojuba
There is a documentary about JMJ's trip and his series of concerts in China in
1981, which for some stupid rights ownership reason is no longer available
(afaict). One curious fact I learned from this film was that the concert in
Shanghai required so much electric power that they had to actually switch off
the power in the entire city during the concert. At least that's what JMJ
tells his then wife Charlotte Rampling in a taxi before the concert.

Other than that, the sound of this album, _Concerts in China_ , was absolutely
mind blowing then and still remains a landmark in electronic music. Big fan of
JMJ and especially his concerts in China series.

~~~
pmlnr
I recently saw a documentary on the early years of Kraftwerk; it was one of
those when you start watching it without expectations just to get your mind
blown and busy for weeks after watching it.

I'd love to see a collection of these; the visionaries of the 70s and 80s, and
I might include Jodorowsky's Dune at the end.

------
nicoboo
By the way, Jean Michel Jarre just played a concert in Israël at the Dead Sea
against difficult weather conditions.

It was done to promote an ecological message as effect of global warming can
be seen in this specific area, see more info about his show on the official
website.

[https://www.jmj-israel.co.il/en/index.html](https://www.jmj-
israel.co.il/en/index.html)

------
metricodus
Jean Michel Jarre - Rendez-Vous Houston (VHS), 1986

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iVQ2o-PI9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iVQ2o-PI9M)

Fantastic collection of TV sound bites begins at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iVQ2o-PI9M&t=57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iVQ2o-PI9M&t=57)

This love of some french artist in Houston felt odd when I last rewatched
this, about ten years ago. Loved the enthusiasm and openness shown in this
video.

~~~
vidarh
The Houston concert received a lot of extra attention because Ron McNair was
meant to play sax for the piece Last Rendez-Vous, which usually is presented
dedicated to him as "Ron's Piece". Then Challenger blew up, and Jarre
considered cancelling until people at NASA convinced him otherwise. So while
I'm sure Houston would have welcomed Jarre without it, that concert got a
special role as a celebration of the astronauts of Challenger.

Ron's Piece is one of my favourite pieces of music and haunting enough and sad
enough on its own, but the history of it makes it even sadder.

~~~
metricodus
Ah.. I had assumed that meaning behind "Ron's piece" was that Ron hailed from
Houston... and that JMJ dedicated the piece to Ron because of the recent
tragedy.

:/

------
eternalban
I used to listen non-stop to this album in college, late 80s. Listening to it
after all these years, it is still exciting but I don't think JMJ is going to
age well. This album with its Chinese street sounds and all the mythology
around the trip was heady and amplified the psychological impact. But it also
sounds a bit plastic, too much mascara, if you will. I couldn't loop listen
this again. Once in a while, sure.

In contrast, I think Kraftwerk is timeless. Imagine this with the same staging
as the China concert:
[https://youtu.be/NL3NqfFTec8?t=25m5s](https://youtu.be/NL3NqfFTec8?t=25m5s)

~~~
mturmon
I had the chance to see Kraftwerk live in LA a couple of years ago, and it was
just amazing. One of the best live shows I've ever seen.

Thematically, they were trying to address the conflicts and tension between us
and the technology we create. I had forgotten about these themes from their
"Radioactivity" album (from 1975), but they brought it up to date by dropping
"Fukushima" into the lyrics as sung that night. It ended up sounding
profoundly prescient, like so much of their other work.

I don't think JMJ has anything like the depth that Kraftwerk has. Like you,
I've been listening to both since the mid 80s - I had Magnetic Fields on
vinyl, but Zoolook on CD. Jarre is mostly simple entertainment for me now, but
Kraftwerk makes me think.

~~~
jacquesm
Jean-Michel Jarre was besides a half decent composer excellent at marketing
and a good showman. By comparison Kraftwerk was the more interesting, further
ahead of the curve and more geeky. Usually the people that liked the one also
like the other to a greater or lesser degree with Vangelis somewhere in the
middle and Tangerine Dream somewhere to the far side of JMJ.

What is amazing to me is that when I listen to that music today it does not
feel nearly as dated as other music from that era.

------
agumonkey
This kind of music represents such a huge chunk of the spirit of that era. A
post space age leaning toward mainstream tech culture.

------
c-smile
1997 concert in Moscow on Sparrow's Hills (Воробьёвы Горы) with Russian
Airforce participating:

[https://youtu.be/pFNlcNpUIk4?t=118](https://youtu.be/pFNlcNpUIk4?t=118)

~~~
pouetpouet
Attendance: 3.5 million!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_concerts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_concerts)

------
wizardforhire
Music for Supermarkets is absolutely amazing.

"notable for having only a single copy pressed, and the subsequent, deliberate
destruction of its master plates, effectively making the copy unique."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_pour_Supermarché](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_pour_Supermarché)

------
andyjohnson0
Live version of Oxygene.

[https://youtu.be/H9UzNh_2TXk](https://youtu.be/H9UzNh_2TXk)

Not a digital interface in sight. I don't know much about synthesizers, but
the kit used definitely looks vintage.

------
cyberferret
I will always associate his name with 'Oxygene' and the soundtrack to the
movie 'Gallipoli'.

His work really made me want a Sequential Prophet 5 synth back in the 80's.
Never got one, but I see now that Dave Smith Instruments has released the
Prophet 6, based on the same concepts, but improved... [0]

[0] -
[https://www.davesmithinstruments.com/product/prophet-6/](https://www.davesmithinstruments.com/product/prophet-6/)

------
crispyambulance
Much of the equipment consists of analog modular synths.

If that intrigues you, definitely check out the recent documentary on the
topic "I Dream of Wires"
([http://www.idreamofwires.org/](http://www.idreamofwires.org/)). It is on
Netflix streaming, but there's also an extended version that is a bit more
geeky. The documentary does a great job of covering synthesizers from the Moog
days to the present revival of analog synths. Interesting stuff.

~~~
pmoriarty
Also see the Muffwiggler forums[1], the largest modular synth community on the
internet.

[1] -
[https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php](https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php)

------
FabHK
Here the full 1981 China concert video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTyAtn177zo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTyAtn177zo)

------
megablast
Is he really playing that music live as shown in the video, the knobs he
twirls doesn't seem to match up with the music change.

This section:
[https://youtu.be/NsxMRz477jM?t=179](https://youtu.be/NsxMRz477jM?t=179)

------
frik
The Social Network featured a lot of analog soundtrack from Trent Reznor. e.g.
Swarmatron music analog instrument
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuM4yBFI03E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuM4yBFI03E)

------
caio1982
To all Space Shuttle lovers out there, this video clip for JMJ's Rendez-Vous
#4 is pretty amazing:
[https://youtu.be/tuuWw7OSqIo](https://youtu.be/tuuWw7OSqIo) — I have always
loved this song :-)

------
chiph
Is that an early Synclavier in the back past the keyboards? With the 8" floppy
drives?

~~~
HayLlamas
It's actually a Fairlight CMI. So far ahead of it's time it was like alien
tech! 16-bit sampler/synth, light pen you could enter notes into the sequencer
or edit waveforms... all in 1979!
[http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.php](http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.php)

------
faragon
Jean Michel Jarre is a genius.

------
andraganescu
is this mono?

------
lazyjones
Not sure what this is doing here, presumably because of the electronic devices
on his stage? Sure, he was an early adopter of sampling technology, but he
probably also invented the "turning knobs on the DJ equipment just for show"
malpractice and most certainly built up huge fake device installations on
stage.

~~~
coldtea
> _but he probably also invented the "turning knobs on the DJ equipment just
> for show" malpractice and most certainly built up huge fake device
> installations on stage._

Those are modular synths. And there's nothing "for show" about them, this is
not DJing. He tweaks filters, and other such things.

~~~
agumonkey
That's part of what contemporary mainstrea DJ do too. And it's not always
gimmicky; a low pass filter as a bridge-cut to slowly restore the full sound
(such as the intro of Armand Van Helden - You don't know me) is a very common
idiom and has a clear musical emotional impact on people.

