Tuesday 2 April 2019

Jean Michel Jarre "Magnetic Fields" (1981)


The fun of this retro synth journey has begun to flicker as my interest wavers in these chirpy adventures on the timely frontier of electronic music. With this next installment we are introduced to an emboldened foray of punchier buzz saws and sine waves that come rather close to tones heard on the NES game system. Its a sharper, harder hitting record that starts of with an opening seventeen minute tangent song. Its got a cool temperament and darker undercurrent reminiscent of Oscillotron. Unfortunately it doesn't manifest in that direction and the music fleets through various arrangements with a lack of direction and disorienting cohesion that meanders.

With a lack of clear event, build up or emotional entanglement, the music can easily slip from focus and descend into a rattling whirl of animated synths zapping away in the distance. The second track deploys a jarring stereo shuffle beat of claps that dispels the magic of its lead melody which itself is quite the ear worm. The last three tracks expand the pallet and experiment with different tones, temperaments and sound sampling but there is little going on to resurrect my already lukewarm feeling. The first few listens were enjoyable but quickly it lost its charm. Oxygene and Equinoxe were a blast but moving to the eighties Im sensing there isn't much left for me in his sound, so I conclude my exploration of Jean Michel Jarre's music here.

Rating: 5/10