Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Aqanique]

Hi everyone!

I'm very excited to share this new remaster of London Kid from Destination Trocadero which I made recently. It was my first time trying to use Audacity to remaster an audio like this, but I honestly think that this is a big improvement to the performance audio-wise, as I managed to "de-muffle" the audio from the original broadcast by a considerable amount.

Although I was unfortunately unable to remove the tape hissing in the background, it's really nice to hear this version of London Kid in clearer quality than most uploads (that I've personally seen) on YouTube.

Also, thank you to Jarre Bootlegs Concerts for giving me permission to use their video remaster of the performance to accompany my own audio remaster, I appreciate it very much!



(P.S. If anybody seeing this thinks that they'd be able to remove the tape hissing from the audio, feel free to shoot me a private message where I can provide a link to the remastered .WAV file)

[Dr_Jones]

This was my first JMJ concert, even though I didn't know who he was... I just happened to be in Paris that day and witnessed the fireworks around the Eiffel tower and heard the music from afar.

[Richard-Eastham]

It's a great mix and a great performance of a great song. Love the remastering Aqanique!

It's like a mini Docklands, the music but also the cast of characters, the instruments and even the outfits. That Yohji Yamamoto frock coat and shirt combination is awesome. He always swam against the fashion tide.

Can somebody tell me the name of the instrument Michel Geiss is playing, the one with the controls that look like a typewriter?

A band – bass, live drums, supporting synths – and a choir. More of this! I was so glad to see this in Bratislava for Rendezvous 2.

The bit at 1'39" where JMJ takes his hands off his LAG synth to sort out the trailing lead, a meta moment: he stops miming so he can adjust a bit of kit deliberately used to make it look like he’s not miming!

[Aqanique]

It's a great mix and a great performance of a great song. Love the remastering Aqanique!

It's like a mini Docklands, the music but also the cast of characters, the instruments and even the outfits. That Yohji Yamamoto frock coat and shirt combination is awesome. He always swam against the fashion tide.

Can somebody tell me the name of the instrument Michel Geiss is playing, the one with the controls that look like a typewriter?

A band – bass, live drums, a supporting synths – and a choir. More of this! I was so glad to see this in Bratislava for Rendezvous 2.

The bit at 1'39" where JMJ takes his hands off his LAG synth to sort out the trailing lead, a meta moment: he stops miming so he can adjust a bit of kit deliberately used to make it look like he’s not miming!

Thanks for the kind words about the remaster, Richard! Really gives me motivation to try and upload more content onto my channel for everyone to enjoy.

To potentially answer your question about the instrument Michel Geiss is playing, I think that it's either a Cavagnolo MIDY 20 or an Elka AMK-800. I'm using an article which lists the instruments used for Destination Docklands as a reference for my guesses, since I remember him playing a similar typewriter looking instrument during Fourth Rendez-Vous.

The Cavagnolo MIDY 20



The Elka AMK-800



Personally I'm gravitating more towards the Elka, since the circular keys look a little more shiny in the video when compared to the Cavagnolo, plus the controls above the keys look pretty similar to the instrument shown too. Then again, I don't know too much about instruments so this is all purely speculation on my part!

[Finaero]

It's like a mini Docklands, the music but also the cast of characters, the instruments and even the outfits. That Yohji Yamamoto frock coat and shirt combination is awesome. He always swam against the fashion tide.

Oh yeah, in a similar way there were a few "PLD continuations" throughout 1990 (forgot the names of the performances, at least in one of them JMJ was wearing a silver Yamamoto coat) - one of them even without JMJ

[rinogurr]

Oh yeah, in a similar way there were a few "PLD continuations" throughout 1990 (forgot the names of the performances, at least in one of them JMJ was wearing a silver Yamamoto coat) - one of them even without JMJ

Sacrée Soirée - 28/11/1990
Stars 90 - 10/12/1990

[Richard-Eastham]

It's like a mini Docklands, the music but also the cast of characters, the instruments and even the outfits. That Yohji Yamamoto frock coat and shirt combination is awesome. He always swam against the fashion tide.

Oh yeah, in a similar way there were a few "PLD continuations" throughout 1990 (forgot the names of the performances, at least in one of them JMJ was wearing a silver Yamamoto coat) - one of them even without JMJ

"one of them even without JMJ" - how do you know that wasn't him in the costume, dancing at the front?

[dzoolook]

It's like a mini Docklands, the music but also the cast of characters, the instruments and even the outfits. That Yohji Yamamoto frock coat and shirt combination is awesome. He always swam against the fashion tide.

Oh yeah, in a similar way there were a few "PLD continuations" throughout 1990 (forgot the names of the performances, at least in one of them JMJ was wearing a silver Yamamoto coat) - one of them even without JMJ

"one of them even without JMJ" - how do you know that wasn't him in the costume, dancing at the front?

Stars 90


Sacree Soiree

[Jote]

So... I really love this version of London Kid. Since this one had no proper studio version release, I'm working on a reconstruction (much like I did with Ethnicolor Dead Sea version from 2017). Here's a couple of demos. I used several stem extractors to extract the guitar from the album version and then I did lots of manual cleanup and some ingenious techniques to remove the strings (at least partially, as they can still be heard faintly every now and then) and piano in the end. Everything else (drums, bass, synths - except choirs) I recorded myself.

london-kid-trocadero-reconstruction-jan-szulew-demo-1.mp3

london-kid-trocadero-reconstruction-jan-szulew-demo-2.mp3

london-kid-trocadero-reconstruction-jan-szulew-demo-3.mp3

[Aqanique]

So... I really love this version of London Kid. Since this one had no proper studio version release, I'm working on a reconstruction (much like I did with Ethnicolor Dead Sea version from 2017). Here's a couple of demos. I used several stem extractors to extract the guitar from the album version and then I did lots of manual cleanup and some ingenious techniques to remove the strings (at least partially, as they can still be heard faintly every now and then) and piano in the end. Everything else (drums, bass, synths - except choirs) I recorded myself.

london-kid-trocadero-reconstruction-jan-szulew-demo-1.mp3

london-kid-trocadero-reconstruction-jan-szulew-demo-2.mp3

london-kid-trocadero-reconstruction-jan-szulew-demo-3.mp3

These demos sound awesome! I didn't expect someone to go out of their way to reconstruct this version of London Kid and do such a great job with it.

Can't wait to hear the completed version whenever it's done!