Jean-Michel Jarre, "There is nothing more exciting than now"
The French electronic music legend talks exclusively to BHMAgazino about his new album with the Greek-sounding title 'Oxymore', virtual reality and his relationship with nostalgia.
It's a little hard to believe that the man talking to you via zoom on your computer screen is 74 years old. Jean-Michel Jarre, a living legend of electronic music, remains handsome and looks at least 20 years younger. The evergreen French composer and performer rose to stardom in 1976 thanks to the success of his breakthrough album 'Oxygène' and continues to experiment non-stop to this day. His live performances have left an era: in Paris he has played in front of 2.5 million spectators, while in Moscow in September 1997 he was watched by 3.5 million (mostly) Russians – a record that has not yet been broken. He was the first Western artist to give a concert (in 1981) in post-Maoist China (he even released a remastered anniversary edition of his historic live album 'The Concerts in China' on 25 November) and has influenced a host of musicians, from Moby to Gary Newman. A lover of beautiful women, he has been the husband of Charlotte Rampling, Anne Parillaud and (now) Gong Li, while he was also briefly married to Isabel Adjani. The occasion for our conversation was given by 'Oxymore', his 22nd studio album which was recently released. The creation of the record began in 2015. It began as a collaboration with Pierre Henri, one of the most emblematic figures of French electronic music and representative of musique concrète, of a genre that introduced real life sounds into music for the first time. The venture did not go ahead for various practical reasons, and Henri passed away in 2017. A few months after his death, his widow gave Czar some audio fragments she found related to their ill-fated partnership, which the demonic musician based on for his later pieces.
From tape recorders to dolby atmos
"When I'm making new music I never think about the audience," he says sarcastically. "I heard Björk say recently that when she starts a new project she doesn't go into the process of asking herself if 30 or 30,000 people will hear it, and I identified with her. I have always approached my music in terms of space and in 'Oxygène' I had even tried to expand the sense of stereophonic sound with delays and reverb. In nature there is no stereo, when I speak to you I speak to you in mono, a bird sings in mono, it is our environment that creates perspective in sound. For centuries as musicians we have had a relationship with sound let's face it, when you composed a symphony you imagined an orchestra in front of you, in the studio you have the speakers. But technology now allows us to immerse ourselves in music. However, I don't think it's smart to bring music that was recorded using another method up to today's standards. Finding a way to hear Frank Sinatra's voice as if it were coming from inside my head seems silly to me – it's a bit like colorizing black and white films, a process that's pointless and bogus. Creating music from scratch specifically to be heard in 360 spatial sound will change the facts, you can explore the space with the different elements of a piece as you would place some objects around yourself. Of course, it opens up whole avenues of possibilities, it's a moment of rupture, a revolution – like when we went from mono to stereo. In a few years I think we'll be looking at stereo sound with nostalgia, the way we look at our grandparents' gramophone now."
The record is also a tribute to the pioneers of French electronic music, "to people like Pierre Henri or Pierre Sefer who decided to incorporate noises or other sounds into the music by mixing the chirping of a bird with the saxophone or the church organ with the sound who does the laundry. This idea was completely revolutionary and laid the groundwork for modern music. Today, whatever music you do, child, R'n'B or rock, you will put sound effects in your productions, we have all become sound engineers. "Oxymore", however, does not have references to the 80s like so many current releases, but refers to the 40s and the morning of tomorrow, it is something of a bridge between the first tape recorders and dolby atmos."
Greece, surrealism, art brut and metaverse
I ask him why he chose a title that refers to Greek. "I really love Greece, I even studied ancient Greek at school and I really like to trace which words we use come from your language and then find their etymology. In an oxymoronic scheme, two seemingly opposite elements are combined to produce something surprisingly true. This also happened in music when other sounds came into play, all of which are naturally connected to another artistic movement, surrealism." I tell him that I read in an interview that he considers Jackson Pollock a major influence and I was surprised. "For me, painting has always been a great source of inspiration, at school I was even faced with the dilemma of "music or painting". Especially abstract works like those of Jackson Pollock, Hans Hartung or Pierre Soulage, are related to musique concrète, I personally think that abstract painting should also be called concrète because its artists work with textures. I embrace the philosophy of all these artists, the form dictates your direction. I could even mention Jean Dubuffet, who put disparate materials into his paintings in an organic way, I always felt a connection even with art brut."
However, the evolution of technology fascinates him just as much as the history of art and he finds everything happening in the field of virtual or augmented reality fascinating: "I think virtual reality is old history, the first VR object is the book, you read a novel and you are transported with your imagination to another reality. The difference now is that you can now send your digital self, in whatever form it takes, into a digital version of the world. For me there is a very poetic dimension in this function. Everyone talks about the metaverse in terms of business or technology, they talk about cryptocurrencies or NFTs, but many possibilities will be given to people who are isolated by geography or confined to a wheelchair. Let's not forget that, in a concert, for example, behind every avatar there will be a real person. It is an extension of the real world, we go from representation to full immersion, we will no longer be mere spectators but active participants". Jean-Michel Jarre is often called a visionary. Who would he describe as such? “Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan and David Lynch are certainly visionaries from the world of cinema. I am impressed by Eric Prydz, I think he approaches electronic music in a very iconoclastic way. Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Björk have also certainly each created a world of their own." we pass from representation to complete immersion, we will no longer be mere spectators but active participants". Jean-Michel Jarre is often called a visionary. Who would he describe as such? “Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan and David Lynch are certainly visionaries from the world of cinema. I am impressed by Eric Prydz, I think he approaches electronic music in a very iconoclastic way. Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Björk have also certainly each created a world of their own." we pass from representation to complete immersion, we will no longer be mere spectators but active participants". Jean-Michel Jarre is often called a visionary. Who would he describe as such? “Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan and David Lynch are certainly visionaries from the world of cinema. I am impressed by Eric Prydz, I think he approaches electronic music in a very iconoclastic way. Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Björk have also certainly each created a world of their own." I am impressed by Eric Prydz, I think he approaches electronic music in a very iconoclastic way. Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Björk have also certainly each created a world of their own." I am impressed by Eric Prydz, I think he approaches electronic music in a very iconoclastic way. Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Björk have also certainly each created a world of their own."
However, the word nostalgia has no place in his vocabulary. "I feel bad for those who don't believe in the future, I feel sorry for them. Many embellish the past and think that everything is getting worse, but if that were true we wouldn't be here talking about such interesting things, we would have died of some disease for which there would be no antibiotics. Our world is not ideal, but there is progress. For me it is natural and human to see the future as a dystopia because deep down we know that one day we will not be there to experience it. It makes sense that it causes us an existential anxiety. But I assure you that every generation, in every decade, considered the present awful and mythologized the past. In the 70s everyone was saying how great the 60s were and so on. But you are blind when you only look backwards. There is nothing more exciting than right now. And I consider young artists really lucky who today have the ability to use technology either to create or to connect with their audience. There is a democratization of tools. In Beethoven's time many composers did not even have the opportunity to hear their music performed because they did not have the money to hire an orchestra or have an aristocracy sponsor to provide them with this luxury. I never get nostalgic or reflect on the past. What I did I did, I can't change it and in fact it doesn't even belong to me. Curiosity is a driving force for me in a very instinctive way. It is very important to press reset and start again with new ideas and principles,
Source: https://www.tovima.gr/printed_post/zan- ... o-to-tora/