BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

Robi83 wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 9:19 pm What a surprise, Francis Rimbert has no good opinion about the album.
Anyway, what could be the "echo" in the French public and press?

I seem to recall him criticising Electronica as well.

Did the two of them fall out?

It seems to me that Francis consistently thinks that any Jarre album he (Francis) have not participated in, are bad.

I saw Francis being more kind with the Oxygène 3 album, pointing out that this album was a good effort. I don't know about E.Infinity though.

I know earlier in this thread I bemoaned the lack of ambiguous, anonymous track titles for Oxymore, preferring the "classic" Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 etc as used from Oxygene, Equinoxe onwards, almost without exception. However, is there a sense of closing the circle with JMJ's first full-length album, Deserted Palace? This has a similar set of literal titles and was an early experiment in electronic sound design. Not long out of the GRM, this was one of JMJ's first commercial releases. Is Oxymore its spiritual successor, 49 years later? Is Oxymore more closely linked to this album than any other?

Poltergeist Party
Music Box Concerto
Rain Forest Rap Session
A Love Theme for Gargoyles
Bridge of Promises
Exasperated Frog
Take Me to Your Leader
Deserted Palace
Pogo Rock
Wind Swept Canyon
The Abominable Snowman
Iraqi Hitch-Hiker
Free Floating Anxiety
Synthetic Jungle
Bee Factory
Agora
Oxymore
Neon Lips
Sonic Land
Animal Genesis
Synthy Sisters
Sex in the Machine
Zeitgeist
Crystal Garden
Brutalism
Epica

Also, EPICA is well, epic!

I know there's been some mixed reviews on here about Oxymore but overall, I really like the album. There are some really good tracks, the whole thing hangs together really well, and I can listen to Track 11 Epica again and again - it really is special. One of his best tracks in years, for sure. I love it when the bassline starts to carry the melody at 4.01 to 4.09 and again at 4.17 to 4.24. It def deserves a single release and a remix.

Robi83 wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 9:19 pm What a surprise, Francis Rimbert has no good opinion about the album.
Anyway, what could be the "echo" in the French public and press?

Don't know about the French press in general, but Metacritic is doing quite ok.
https://www.metacritic.com/music/oxymor ... chel-jarre
There's 3 positive reviews, 2 mixed ones, 0 negatives. Mojo gives it an 8/10, Uncut and Quietus a 7/10. One 6/10 review is still positive, only Classic Rock magazine things it's too 90s (funny since all other reviews I've read praise its modern style and JMJ being of this time). But hey, that's Classic Rock magazine, what do they know?

But then again, that's only 5 reviews.

Richard-Eastham wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 7:54 pm However, is there a sense of closing the circle with JMJ's first full-length album, Deserted Palace? This has a similar set of literal titles and was an early experiment in electronic sound design. Not long out of the GRM, this was one of JMJ's first commercial releases. Is Oxymore its spiritual successor, 49 years later? Is Oxymore more closely linked to this album than any other?

Funny you should mention it. Deserted Palace had a subtitle : volume 1. Indicating there should be a volume 2. But yeah, I think I agree with you: it might be closest to Deserted Palace than any other album.

I'd give this album a 3.5/5 rating, I certainly keep coming back to it (not to all tracks, though) - and it's the first JMJ release I've bought since Equinoxe Infinity in 2018, so that's something.

German FAZE mag even rates the album at 10/10.
https://www.fazemag.de/jean-michel-jarr ... mbia-sony/

I think OXYMORE is very strong and daring, and would myself rate it at 4/5. Also I agree on the praise of EPICA. The album is rather dark and gloomy, so it's nice to have this energetic breather finishing off. Another oxymoron, I suppose.

Extensive and interesting German interview in the Frankfurter Rundschau today: https://www.fr.de/kultur/musik/die-rena ... 81541.html
Interviewer was Max Dax, who also did the interview at the Berlin listening session of Oxymore.

German TV report on rbb Kultur (incl. Video): https://www.rbb-online.de/rbbkultur-mag ... erlin.html

Live stream with Grahame Farmer: https://m.twitch.tv/grahamefarmer

Interesting chat, I can recommend it to everyone!

I asked about a physical Atmos version of Oxymore, but hearing his answer, probably not...

I have a Sony Xperia 5 III phone. It's great and it has Dolby Atmos "switch" on the audio settings. Not sure what this does to a standard mp3 file but is certainly makes music sound better thru headphones.