Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Dr_Jones]

Hi everybody! I'm a Jarre Fan born in Argentina. I heard about the release of "Deserted Palace" on vinyl, but they haven't imported it here yet. I wanted to know if it will be available soon on platforms like Spotify or Tidal, or where it can be downloaded in mp3 format at 320 or in FLAC.

Regards!

Bandcamp sells the digital release on 320kbps mp3, flac and many more formats.

[Dr_Jones]

Does anyone have more information about this cover? Any images of the back cover?

It's a fake image, which was made up by the maker of Rarities 1. The castle is a stock vector image of a Disneland castle:

[nexxxus]

Sorry, but can anyone who bought the digital version on Bandcamp tell me how long track 13 is?


Sorry again, I just remembered Dr_Jones's post and I got the answer: DR10 -0.10 dB -16.96 dB 2:16 13 - Free Floating Anxiety [flac]

All this to say that Bandcamp has since updated the album download to a track length of 2 minutes 20 seconds.
This at least solves the problem of the abruptly cut-off ending.
All that remains is to remove the left channel noise.

Unfortunately, the vinyl already contains these two errors.

[Dr_Jones]

Oh, that's interesting. So they updated the track on their website. Good service, I'll download it again.

[Pat Gleeson]

Does anyone have more information about this cover? Any images of the back cover?

AFAIK that is a bootleg cover. I first saw it on the legendary CD bootleg Rarities, which had the album along with Les Granges Brulees and other tracks such as Zig Zag Dance, La Cage and Erosmachine.

[Pat Gleeson]

Does anyone have more information about this cover? Any images of the back cover?

Here's what the Rarities bootleg looked like: Rarities Bootleg Cover and Booklet

[1906]

It seems that the album was going to have a bonus track, but they gave up at the last minute. The B-side has six tracks, but the credits list an eighth track from 1973. The album was released in 1972.

Perhaps they meant A8 instead of B8, referring to the title "Deserted Palace"?
This copyright notice is about the album's title, originally licensed to Francis Dreyfus, now BMG. The initial Sam Fox release did not have a title.

[Dr_Jones]

Yeah, I suspect, in the vein of the original back having typos, that this is a typo too.

[Dr_Jones]

I just checked the vinyl, Free Floating Anxiety stops abruptly on the vinyl too.

[nexxxus]

And Bee Factory which seems to be a reversed samples (loops) construct begins abruptly without the beginning (2,5 sec less) comparing my Rarities edition.

[Dr_Jones]

https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the ... tification

At the tail end of 1976, with the majestic Oxygene, French composer Jean-Michel Jarre became electronic music’s crown prince, savior, and rock star all rolled into one. Overflowing with lush rhythms, tasty textures, and earworm synth melodies, it earned Jarre international fame and eventually sold some 15 million copies. Four years prior, Jarre was just a scrappy young buck finding his feet in a genre that barely existed; scarcely out of his teens, he was part of the pioneering electronic music collective Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), co-founded by legendary avant-gardists Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. By the early ‘70s, Jarre had dallied in rock, classical music, pop, and radical experimentalism, and his first album reflected it all.

When Jarre made Deserted Palace, Kraftwerk wasn’t even using proper synthesizers yet, and Tangerine Dream was still assembling sprawling, abstract pieces that eschewed tonality and rhythm. Armed only with an EMS VCS 3 (one of the earliest British synths) and a Farfisa combo organ (the gloriously low-rent sound heard on countless ‘60 garage-psych recordings), he made what could be considered one of the first synth pop albums. The trouble is, the public never had a chance to hear it.

Deserted Palace was never intended for the ears of the masses. It was initially an album of library music, made to be licensed to production houses as stock soundtrack material for use in TV and film. Like all the other library music that became ultra-collectible decades later, it was never available as a retail item, and most copies were likely lost or trashed over time. At first, it was probably only ever heard by a handful of TV and movie studios’ music supervisors. The world at large was missing out on a lot: if Deserted Palace sounds like the intern at an electronics lab was left alone overnight and decided to build himself some friends to party with, it’s because that’s pretty much its provenance. According to Jarre, he literally stole the keys to the GRM studio and snuck in by night, creating his first LP in complete solitude.

Unlike the comparatively polished sounds Jarre became famous for, Deserted Palace is raw, minimalist, and at times endearingly goofy. It opens with the boldly bleeping pulse of “Poltergeist Party,” which finds a middle ground between the Dr. Who theme and the kind of sounds late-’70s Human League were turning out before they went pop. Employing elemental synth and organ tones and the kind of stripped-down arrangements befitting the hit-and-run circumstances of the recording, Jarre mixes funky licks and sci-fi sound effects (“Rain Forest Rap Session”), constructs what could be a love theme for androids (“Bridge of Promises”), and presents a poignant piece suggestive of his classical training (the title track).

At times, tunes like “Iraqi Hitch Hiker” and “Synthetic Jungle” prefigure the first sounds that bands like OMD and Depeche Mode would start turning out several years later. If only some of those artists could have heard Deserted Palace in the ‘70s it might have been hailed alongside Kraftwerk’s Autobahn as a pillar of ‘70s proto-synthpop. But with its first-ever official reissue more than half a century after its creation, it’s finally got a chance to earn its proper place in the electronic pantheon.

[Dr_Jones]

And Bee Factory which seems to be a reversed samples (loops) construct begins abruptly without the beginning (2,5 sec less) comparing my Rarities edition.

Hmm, yeah, the original LP fades in, which is not the case for the 2025 edition. I will open both in audacity to compare them.

[Richard-Eastham]

Great write up from Band Camp, the writer Jim Allen is really pushing the JMJ legacy, placing him up there with Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and being in right at the start. Good stuff!

[Dr_Jones]

And Bee Factory which seems to be a reversed samples (loops) construct begins abruptly without the beginning (2,5 sec less) comparing my Rarities edition.

can confirm. It's even more than 2.5 seconds. Close to 3.5 seconds.

[Kanta]

ALBUM OF THE DAY
Jean-Michel Jarre, “Deserted Palace”
By Jim Allen · May 07, 2025

At the tail end of 1976, with the majestic Oxygene, French composer Jean-Michel Jarre became electronic music’s crown prince, savior, and rock star all rolled into one. Overflowing with lush rhythms, tasty textures, and earworm synth melodies, it earned Jarre international fame and eventually sold some 15 million copies. Four years prior, Jarre was just a scrappy young buck finding his feet in a genre that barely existed; scarcely out of his teens, he was part of the pioneering electronic music collective Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), co-founded by legendary avant-gardists Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. By the early ‘70s, Jarre had dallied in rock, classical music, pop, and radical experimentalism, and his first album reflected it all.

When Jarre made Deserted Palace, Kraftwerk wasn’t even using proper synthesizers yet, and Tangerine Dream was still assembling sprawling, abstract pieces that eschewed tonality and rhythm. Armed only with an EMS VCS 3 (one of the earliest British synths) and a Farfisa combo organ (the gloriously low-rent sound heard on countless ‘60 garage-psych recordings), he made what could be considered one of the first synth pop albums. The trouble is, the public never had a chance to hear it.

Deserted Palace was never intended for the ears of the masses. It was initially an album of library music, made to be licensed to production houses as stock soundtrack material for use in TV and film. Like all the other library music that became ultra-collectible decades later, it was never available as a retail item, and most copies were likely lost or trashed over time. At first, it was probably only ever heard by a handful of TV and movie studios’ music supervisors. The world at large was missing out on a lot: if Deserted Palace sounds like the intern at an electronics lab was left alone overnight and decided to build himself some friends to party with, it’s because that’s pretty much its provenance. According to Jarre, he literally stole the keys to the GRM studio and snuck in by night, creating his first LP in complete solitude.

Unlike the comparatively polished sounds Jarre became famous for, Deserted Palace is raw, minimalist, and at times endearingly goofy. It opens with the boldly bleeping pulse of “Poltergeist Party,” which finds a middle ground between the Dr. Who theme and the kind of sounds late-’70s Human League were turning out before they went pop. Employing elemental synth and organ tones and the kind of stripped-down arrangements befitting the hit-and-run circumstances of the recording, Jarre mixes funky licks and sci-fi sound effects (“Rain Forest Rap Session”), constructs what could be a love theme for androids (“Bridge of Promises”), and presents a poignant piece suggestive of his classical training (the title track).

At times, tunes like “Iraqi Hitch Hiker” and “Synthetic Jungle” prefigure the first sounds that bands like OMD and Depeche Mode would start turning out several years later. If only some of those artists could have heard Deserted Palace in the ‘70s it might have been hailed alongside Kraftwerk’s Autobahn as a pillar of ‘70s proto-synthpop. But with its first-ever official reissue more than half a century after its creation, it’s finally got a chance to earn its proper place in the electronic pantheon.

Source: https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the ... ace-review