Jean- Michel Edward Snowden presence on video . He ’ s not a singer , not a rock artist , but he ’ s a
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considered an album with some different parts . And to really start it , you have to have some chaotic moments that are a nod to that darkness , chaotic moments that are typical of what we were living through . I mean , you can go out and you can be killed on a street corner by terrorists . But you can also potentially meet the love of your life , and these instances are extremely negative or extremely positive moments in life that you just cannot control . And even through the Internet , you can find somebody that could become the love of |
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massive fan of electronic music , so he was very excited about this collaboration , and together we conceived this mad , crazy techno track . I just recorded Edward ’ s voice , talking and revealing why he did what he did . So it ’ s a great moment in the concert , when you suddenly have this huge image of Snowden talking to the crowd . But in every electronic movement , there ’ s a hedonistic side , where you listen to music for pleasure and dance until the end of the night . But because electronic music is close to technology , close to the Internet , it can question the dark side of technology and also what ’ s going on around it . And I realized that when I did Oxygene 3 – all of these terrible terrorist attacks were happening in France , so I |
05 • 2017 your life . But technology allows us to go faster and faster , and to also create chaos from nothing . So I had lots of ideas I wanted to put in this album , and I think the record has two sides . Since I did the first Oxygene in vinyl days , I was thinking about Side One and Side Two . So Side One is probably more dark , because of these awful terrorist attacks occurring in France , and I was really affected by that . And I tracked the first side precisely at that moment . But then Side Two is more sunny , melodic and brighter . So the light and dark elements make it kind of a different album .
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Jean-Michael Jarre , circa 1975 |
IE : And you just worked with Gorillaz for its new album “ Humanz ”? JMJ : It ’ s really strange , this prospect of collaboration |
. I started collaborating for my Electronica projects , and then I started getting requests for collaborations on other projects . And a few months ago , I met ( Gorillaz / Blur bandleader ) Damon Albarn , and we thought it would be great to do something together . So he joined me in my studio in Paris , and we spent some sessions together for what would become three new Gorillaz tracks . And I must say that I took a lot of pleasure in working with Damon – he ’ s one of the most versatile and richly creative people I ’ ve ever met . And he works in an interesting way – it ’ s a mixture of instinct and an almost perfectionist attitude . And we both believe that the most interesting thing , creatively , is when you ’ re losing control and the accidents |
that then happen . And we are both recording everything we do . For instance , you ’ re in a session for three hours , you record everything , and you just play – it ’ s total freedom . And obviously , maybe 90 % of the time , you do that and it ’ s just not very interesting . But other times ? You get something that ’ s really unique . And this process reminds me of what jazz is all about . So electronic music and jazz are quite close , I think .
IE : Thanks to your bohemian mom , you saw jazz icons like Chet Baker when you were a little kid . JMJ : Yeah . I was so lucky . My mom was close friends with this woman who had
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