Equinoxe - Jean-Michel Jarre

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01 - Equinoxe Part 1.
Yep, another album where Jarre didn't come up with track names just part numbers. Back then everyone had some Jarre in their tv music archive and Equinoxe was one of the most used. Like Oxygene its also got a very space travel type feel to it (probably because I associate it with Arthur C Clarke) and it's yet another great example of how well Jean-Michel can create ambient soundscapes.

02 - Equinoxe ...
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03 - Equinoxe Part 3.
What I think of as "The sea track" becasue of the crashing waves in the intro, I always had a feeling this was supposed to go on Oxygene but was left off at the very last minute and kept over for this album, its got a nice arpeggio sequence that sounds like it'd be impossible to play live and was almost certainly controlled by a sequencer.

04 - Equinoxe Part 4.
One of the tracks which ... more

If your going to recognise ANY Jarre from JUST the opening bars of the very first track of the album then its going to be this. Especially if like me you are British & 30 something as it was used on stuff like "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World" as theme & incidental music.

The album was also debuted with a concert in Paris at the Place de la Concorde in 1979 & got into the Guiness Book Of Record setting the record for the largest outdoor concert attendance with a crowd of 1 million people (including Mick Jagger), a record that would remain unbroken until Jarre himself broke it again with his Rendezvous Houston concert.

So whats on Equinoxe?

01 - Equinoxe Part 1.
Yep, another album where Jarre didn't come up with track names just part numbers. Back then everyone had some Jarre in their tv music archive and Equinoxe was one of the most used. Like Oxygene its also got a very space travel type feel to it (probably because I associate it with Arthur C Clarke) and it's yet another great example of how well Jean-Michel can create ambient soundscapes.

02 - Equinoxe Part 2.
Another spacey type track that was frequently used by tv shows (I believe this was also used on the radio version of Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy) as it just has a great "vastness of space" vibe to it.

03 - Equinoxe Part 3.
What I think of as "The sea track" becasue of the crashing waves in the intro, I always had a feeling this was supposed to go on Oxygene but was left off at the very last minute and kept over for this album, its got a nice arpeggio sequence that sounds like it'd be impossible to play live and was almost certainly controlled by a sequencer.

04 - Equinoxe Part 4.
One of the tracks which was released as a single, this would eventually go on to become a mainstay of Jean-Michels live playlist for various concerts during the 80's and 90's. The rather weird bleeps you hear on this come from the ARP 2600 Synthesizer which was also used to create the sounds for R2-D2 in Star Wars.

05 - Equinoxe Part 5.
Most people generally mistake this for a track off Magnetic Fields, I've made that mistake myself too. I apologise for thinking this was the theme for "Where Theres Life", that was actually Oxygene 4! You can now see what people mean when they call Jarres music "samey", its very hard to tell certain albums apart. Sometimes I can't and I've been listening to him for over 30 years.

06 - Equinoxe Part 6.
Another track that would go on to find further life in the Rendezvous concerts, its quite plinky plonky but very fun to run or do exercise to. At around the 2.50 mark it does segue into a completely different section of the same track which eventually mixes into the following part.

07 - Equinoxe Part 7.
This track also got recycled for the Rendezvous concerts, its quite mellow at the start but certainly builds up into quite a crescendo. Its tracks like this that led to me describing Jarre as "The Modern Mozart" to a tv newscrew for Newsroom South East interviewing people in the queue for the Destination Docklands concert.

08 - Equinoxe Part 8
Or Band In the Rain as it has become known (because of the weather noises in the background), its a quirky little track that Jarre likes to play live on a wind-up organ now and then. It also segues into a very slow version of Equinoxe Part 5 that a lot of people don't notice because of the change to the much slower tempo.

This is another of those albums that you just know influenced acts like Air, Groove Armada & Goldfrapp. Parts 5 and 4 were both released as singles (yes, in that order. I thought it was weird as well but Jarre is the mad Frenchman), the album itself reached #11 in the UK album charts but it didn't sell as well as Oxygene with just over 10 million copies sold.

This review also appears on Dooyoo. 

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