Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[shadow]

Just received the email, was a long time coming since the initial tease.

November 1984 saw the release of one of musics most innovative recordings: ZOOLOOK. To celebrate it`s 40th anniversary Jean-Michel Jarre personally re-mastered the originals and recorded a brand new track „Moon Machine“, a modern take on what made the album so special 40 years ago.

‘Zoolook’ fused electronic music with groundbreaking vocal samples from over 25 languages, creating a rich cultural tapestry and one of the earliest albums to use sampling technology so extensively. Zoolook is groundbreaking in its use of the Fairlight CMI, one of the earliest digital sampling synthesisers, which allowed Jarre to manipulate vocal sounds from 25 different languages. This expansive, multicultural approach created an ‘ethnic’ album, aligning with the influence of Jarre’s former mentor, musique concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, whose techniques encouraged the incorporation of real-world sounds into musical compositions.


Zoolook - 40th anniversary will be released on November 8th, 2024 digitally everywhere. The newly remastered anniversary edition limited-edition 180g single LP vinyl will be released on January 10th, 2025 and can be pre-ordered as of now.

By pre-ordering the album digitally one automatically gets access to a voice note by Jean-Michel Jarre talking about the album.

Bit of a shame it's just one 'new' track, but here we are.

[Jote]

Bit of a shame it's just one 'new' track, but here we are.

Slightly more shame when you realize it's "Moon Machine", per another announcement and jpc.de track listing.

[Richard-Eastham]

Moon Machine, the track that's been widely accessible for 33 years since it was included in 1991's "Images" best of album. Doesn't really warrant the description of a bonus. A bonus in my book would be something we’ve not heard before, from the archives, something unusual or a live version of one of the original tracks.

Re-reading the newsletter email, I am intrigued:

To celebrate it`s 40th anniversary Jean-Michel Jarre personally re-mastered the originals and recorded a brand new track „Moon Machine“, a modern take on what made the album so special 40 years ago.

Personally remastered by JMJ (?) and a "brand new track" (?)

[Jote]

Re-reading the newsletter email, I am intrigued:

To celebrate it`s 40th anniversary Jean-Michel Jarre personally re-mastered the originals and recorded a brand new track „Moon Machine“, a modern take on what made the album so special 40 years ago.

Personally remastered by JMJ (?) and a "brand new track" (?)

PR bulls**t. Obviously "Moon Machine" is not brand new. He might have done a "brand new version" of an old track, but I sincerely doubt it. Another low-effort release. Where are the old extended mixes? Where's Zoolookologie from the Electronica tour? Where's Ethnicolor from Masada? (well, at least my replica remains the only studio quality version available...). Missed opportunity

[Domestos]

Moon Machine was originally a b-side from the RV4 single in 1986!

Kinda sick of this bollocks from him now. He must have copious archives…so dip into them? Give us some demo versions or something.

All so low effort. (Edit: I pressed submit before the post above!)

[Dr_Jones]

Also... No CD release?

[Robi83]

If David Perreau....no thanks.

[Dr_Jones]

And this could have been the perfect opportunity to add the 12" versions of Zoolook and Zoolookologie.

[Oxygene]

Re-reading the newsletter email, I am intrigued:

To celebrate it`s 40th anniversary Jean-Michel Jarre personally re-mastered the originals and recorded a brand new track „Moon Machine“, a modern take on what made the album so special 40 years ago.

Personally remastered by JMJ (?) and a "brand new track" (?)

The German version of the newsletter states Jean Michel "added" a new track. I think this is more appropriate than "recorded". He added a new track to the original tracklist. But the track itself is of course not "new". Indeed a missed opportunity to add something special. He seems to be too busy with too many things...

[jeanbatman]

It will take a super hardcore fan to buy this vinyl, unless he damaged his originals.
Sure we will have a re-brand of the Moon machine track; but is it worth the money?

[Dr_Jones]

Yeah, it does mean Moon Machine is now part of the Zoolook canon or campaign.

[Jarrepeggiator]

Don't forget that in his Instagram live at the start of the year, Jean-Michel Jarre said that he wants the album to be closer to what he originally had in mind. Based on this, I doubt he will just copy and paste the existing version of Moon Machine, otherwise, why would he work on it at all?

Here is what he said:

[Finaero]

At the very least, I hope that the "[JMJ] personally re-mastered the originals" part could be referring to something akin to the 2007 Oxygene New Master Recording, where for example the bubbling transition to Oxygene 5 starts (or rather, becomes more audible) at a later point than in other versions, thus making it very unique.

(Sadly, it also has bad stuff like some of the effects in Oxygene 1 sounding like they were played off a bad tape, but still )

[Kanta]

Jean-Michel Jarre to release newly remastered 40th-anniversary version of Zoolook

Jean-Michel Jarre's 1984 album Zoolook to be reissued on vinyl with bonus track in January

Source: https://www.loudersound.com/news/jean-m ... of-zoolook

[Jote]

Don't forget that in his Instagram live at the start of the year, Jean-Michel Jarre said that he wants the album to be closer to what he originally had in mind. Based on this, I doubt he will just copy and paste the existing version of Moon Machine, otherwise, why would he work on it at all?

Here is what he said:

JMJ says a LOT of things. I would take all this with a huge grain of a salt.