Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[1906]

Yes, before Oxygene Jarre had several releases at Disques Motors. Zig Zag (1972), Hypnose(1972),... and some collaborations with Christophe and other artists under the label Disques Motors. So Francis Dreyfus already knew him well at that time.

Both Disques Labrador and soundtrack label Eden Roc that released Cartolina and Les Granges Brûlées, respectively, were owned by Dreyfus too. Fun fact: one of the earlier Eden Roc releases was a soundtrack by Maurice Jarre: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/2937301 .

[dzoolook]

Ironically, a much more interesting release than recent Zoolook reissue

[Dr_Jones]

Here are samples of all 15 tracks

https://www.soundohm.com/product/deserted-palace

Thanks to LaCage for this

[Jote]

MFS should NEVER get a release.... it would ruin the whole point of that project!

Meh, I don't really care about that point. A fair compromise would be a digital only release. That way there's still only one PHYSICAL copy in existence. Or if it's still too much, just give us the Overture, which is what most people want anyway.

[Robi83]

MFS should NEVER get a release.... it would ruin the whole point of that project!

Meh, I don't really care about that point. A fair compromise would be a digital only release. That way there's still only one PHYSICAL copy in existence. Or if it's still too much, just give us the Overture, which is what most people want anyway.

Part 5 is The masterpiece, IMHO.

[Dr_Jones]

I love part 5. Shame that someone's talking through it for a few minutes.

[shadow]

MFS should NEVER get a release.... it would ruin the whole point of that project!

I genuinely can not agree on that, especially when you see how the music market has evolved over all those years. Produce one record, much like a painting and have it being a unique piece of art. All right, fun ideas, but considering how the painting comparison has been made by Jarre himself, well... How many copies of the Mona Lisa are there? American Gothic? Or even the original Oxygène painting? They're all still singularly unique, though there are a billion copies made of those original pieces.
I get Jarre probably has no interest in releasing the album in its entirety in any way shape or form (and in part impossible since the final mix was destroyed), but at this point, we've all ready got half the album still in studio quality in one way or another. Why not go all the way, release it digitally exclusive, if need be with a new (final) mix, that record would still be unique.

I do get the idea of the album, and in context of the time it was done way before the internet, I entirely understand it. But times have changed so much on a technical front and music has been devalued even further since with streaming giving people no control over the music. Rereleasing this album either exclusively physically or digitally as a purchase without any option for streaming would actually redo the same idea, of going against the grain of the industry selling music without much thought (hell, the industry doesn't even seem interested in selling it anymore), but brought forward to current times.

But considering Jarre/management have bent their knee on every single demand from publishers/streaming services (terrible loud digital mastering, gaps/fades between tracks), I doubt he would or could ever pull this move off again.








Or maybe I just want that bloody Overture released in high quality all ready!

[Jote]

MFS should NEVER get a release.... it would ruin the whole point of that project!

I genuinely can not agree on that, especially when you see how the music market has evolved over all those years. Produce one record, much like a painting and have it being a unique piece of art. All right, fun ideas, but considering how the painting comparison has been made by Jarre himself, well... How many copies of the Mona Lisa are there? American Gothic? Or even the original Oxygène painting? They're all still singularly unique, though there are a billion copies made of those original pieces.
I get Jarre probably has no interest in releasing the album in its entirety in any way shape or form (and in part impossible since the final mix was destroyed), but at this point, we've all ready got half the album still in studio quality in one way or another. Why not go all the way, release it digitally exclusive, if need be with a new (final) mix, that record would still be unique.

And even with digital you could still release a limited number of copies and each copy could have a watermark (for instance a human readable number embedded in the spectrogram). Sure, that would need work and probably some infrastructure around it but it's absolutely doable.

[rinogurr]

MFS should NEVER get a release.... it would ruin the whole point of that project!

I get Jarre probably has no interest in releasing the album in its entirety in any way shape or form (and in part impossible since the final mix was destroyed), but at this point, we've all ready got half the album still in studio quality in one way or another. Why not go all the way, release it digitally exclusive, if need be with a new (final) mix, that record would still be unique.

Indeed, the master matrix was destroyed (burnt with a blowlamp) in the auction room, but we have kept a safety copy of the master tape which was never used after.
Daniéle Feuillerat (Francis Dreyfus Music)

[Quants0]

Here are samples of all 15 tracks

https://www.soundohm.com/product/deserted-palace

Thanks to LaCage for this

Can def hear crackle etc in some places, Bridge of Promises for example, but it still absolutely shits all over the 2011 remasters

[Dr_Jones]

The quality of Free Floating Anxiety is... debatable.
But Poltergeist Party sounds so good, I'm hearing things I've never heard before.

[SeePer]

Hi Everyone,

I've rejoined this forum as the Deserted Palace release prompted my interest once again. I used to be here many years ago as "rubberlips". I tend to loiter on a couple of Facebook groups these days... I've long been interested in creating an authoritative biography of Jean-Michel Jarre, based on newspaper articles and extensive historical research. I've been working on this off and on for many years as a personal project (between work and family priorities - I also make a car magazine for kids), and I have pieced together quite a lot of history. It was this that brought me here.

I read the comments on Deserted Palace with interest, and thought I'd fill in a little of what I understand...

I think 1972 is a really interesting, but not well understood, year in Jarre's biography. it is interesting because, in my view, it marked a significant change in direction - when Jarre met Dreyfus. I believe Jarre quit his studies under the GRM the previous year (bear in mind he was never a "member" rather a "student of", on an affiliated university module. Towards the end of his time at the GRM Jarre got working with an older student from the first intake (Jarre's was the 2nd I believe) called Igor Wakhevitch. Wakhevitch was a young avant-garde composer working on operas at this time. Jarre had assisted Wakhevitch at the Festival D'Avignon (he mentions this in the Planet Jarre podcast with Matt Berry), and they had worked together on AoR in October '71. Jarre briefly "assisted" Wakhevitch in producing Terry Riley's "Happy Ending" in Château d'Hérouville, between March and April 72. I've seen a letter from Jarre to Peter Zinovieff (EMS studios) from April 1972. In this letter Jarre say he is working on a further opera, but I don't think this work ever saw the light of day...

Instead, a change in direction...

There are the facts of Jarre's time at EMI/Pathé Marconi - Jarre's old school friend, Max Dumas, was working there and I think it was he who enabled Jarre to press copies of La Cage/Erosmachine, but I think this was a bit of moonlighting. This led to Jarre doing other things at that studio (with the band Triangle for example).

Francis Dreyfus said in an interview with Billboard that he first met Jarre in '72. I'm not sure what led to the introduction, but since Dustbin's drummer Stanislas Witold was working with Dreyfus, and a student from Jarre's GRM days, Helene Leduc (who did the art work for La Cage/Erosmachine), who went on to marry Dreyfus, also seemed to be working for Dreyfus at this time. According to Jarre, the meeting with Dreyfus was "transformative". Jarre was signed on to Dreyfus's roster almost immediately "My versatility intrigued him, and for the first time, I enjoyed a monthly advance on royalties, conditioned, of course, on the production of a certain number of works". Dreyfus himself said "I set up a really crazy contract with him. The idea was that I'd free him from any financial problems and just enable him to be himself as an artist. They said I was mad, because the guy wasn't then an artist, and he had no hit records. Okay, I said, so I want to be one of the last great eccentrics of the French music industry."

Deserted Palace was recorded for the Sam Fox Publishing Company, an American company specialising in library music. Synchro Fox was Sam Fox's UK and Europe subsidiary library, providing versatile cues for media, with composers earning around half of the usage fees. By the late sixties, Synchro-Fox had signed a number of composers to contribute music to its catalogue, and had moved into electronic music, similar to other libraries around the world. Dreyfus’s Editions Labrador was Fox’s French licensee and likely followed a similar model.

It will be interesting to see what Jarre says in the sleeve notes around all of this. I get the impression that Jarre was on Dreyfus's "in house" roster when the opportunity to work on Deserted Palace came along, though perhaps Deserted Palace was a test which actually led to the Dreyfus contract? Library music was inexpensive, cheap to produce, and relatively risk free, so it is not as if Dreyfus was to lose out in any significant way.

I was interested to read that Bernard Beaugendre was responsible for the colour artwork for Deserted Palace. Beaugendre was one of Dreyfus's employees. Of course, Deserted Place was originally sleeveless/ in the Synchro Fox house sleeve, so interesting that Dreyfus decided to put a sleeve around it. Does anyone know when this was?

The notes on this re-release page make for interesting reading. "a studio album written and performed by Jean-Michel Jarre in 1972 during his time at G.R.M" and Jarre's own quote "It was a crazy album, totally homemade, with rhythms I created in my student room using minimal equipment. At the same time, I incorporated electronic sounds taken from the GRM when I would sneak into the studios at night, having stolen the keys". I'm not sure about that at all! I don't think any GRM samples appear on Deserted Palace at all and given its genesis was post GRM I'd be very surprised if Jarre was actively working towards it while he was a student of the GRM.

I think Deserted Palace is an intriguing, if primitive, listen. I think it delivers on its brief. It's library music and it wasn't made to be listened to in a regular way like normal records, rather as material for radio show jingles, ads and such like. The blurb seemingly tries to elevate its aim to something rather grander "commissioned to create soundscapes for public spaces". I'm not sure about that... just call it jingles!

If anyone has other insights I'd love you to share them!

[Dr_Jones]

I believe that Helene Dreyfus once said in an interview she met JMJ at the GRM and introduced him to Dreyfus, so you're close with your hypothesis.

[Richard-Eastham]

That's a fabulous insight, SeePer - thanks!

[Richard-Eastham]

"I've seen a letter from Jarre to Peter Zinovieff (EMS studios) from April 1972. In this letter Jarre say he is working on a further opera, but I don't think this work ever saw the light of day..."

Wow! This is really interesting. JMJ has said on previous occasions that he sold his electric guitar and (weirdly) an electric trainset - is this right? - to raise the funds to buy an EMS VCS3 and he travelled to London to buy the synth in person from Zinovieff's workshop in Putney. This image of a long-haired, student Jarre, on a train from Paris to Calais, then from Dover to London Victoria, then to Putney, with money in his pocket, is to me fascinating. This is the career turning point, surely? To swap his electric guitar for a synth, and to do so in such a direct and deliberate way. This was no chance encounter.

When Zinovieff sadly died in 2011 I really thought I’d see quite a few references to Jean-Michel Jarre in the various obituaries, that the EMS VCS3 was his first synth and it had a critical role in Oxygene and so on, but there were few if any mentions that I could find.