Lighting and music specialist Jean Michel Jarre on 3 March in the Volkswagen Halle
The Audiovisionär
Jean Michel Jarre is a living legend. The musician, composer and visionary in the late '60s, developed his own unique form of electronic music, which he had during his career at the Pyramids of Giza, in the Forbidden City in Beijing or in front of 1,000,000 viewers fascinated at the Place de la Concorde in Paris as an audiovisual event put in scene. For (relatively) small Jean Michel Jarre concert tours in the spring of central Europe. As of March he will present his debut book "Oxygen" in a multimedia sound and light show in German arenas and halls.
How did you get the time of rock and roll ever came to electronic music?
At that time I played in bands in the direction of The Who and The Yardbirds. Sowas precisely, but always with the approach to transform sounds, they record on tape and play back, and so on, as in progressive rock.
Before "Oxygen" I had already made a lot of different electronic music. Ever since 1967/68. Very progressive experimental music! I had a dream to create with "Oxygen" as a bridge between classical music and progressive electronic music. This was probably the difference with all the German bands who started at this time also, such as Tangerine Dream or Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk, for example, have dedicated themselves rather robotic and mechanical sounds and technology. I have approached sound and technique has always been different. More like an abstract painting. Just as the artist Jackson Pollock. Even that was for me always like to cook. Frequencies, textures and colors of cooking - in a sensual way. That was probably the main difference.
What inspired you to this particular approach?
Even as a schoolboy I have painted many images, abstractions, like all these abstract artists. I was then employed with textures, materials and perspectives. In a very natural sense, then, I have also developed electronic music. Not so much the technique prescribed, but rather technique used to employ me with space and surface. With things directly around us. Even with the awareness of environment and economy. I thought electronic music - without words - would very well with architecture, urban and natural space to work and so on.
What were limited in the early 70s, the technical possibilities to produce synthetic music?
This is a very interesting question, because with analog synthesizers, everything seemed erstmal limited. But actually it was not so. Because with analog synthesizers is possible, because there is nothing inevitable - everything is configurable. With a digital instrument everything is mathematically limited. The software is designed of ones and zeros. Since it is more about an intellectual approach than with analogue instruments. And that makes an incredibly big difference and is the reason that many current-day musicians fascinated by analog instruments as part of the mythology of electronic music. Also, because the instruments do not exist anymore. For example it is the dream of a classical musician - even today in 2009 - on a Stradivarius instrument
to play in the 17th Century was built. With all around the world advanced technology available today, nobody has managed to build better tools. So it is with electric guitars. A Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul from the late 50's undefeated until today. There was just a particular special knowledge and know-how that you can not recover. And many electronic instruments and analog Shynthesizer have disappeared with the beginning of the 80s and the great rise of the computer. These instruments, therefore, had the chance to become never really grown up. This is also one of the main ideas of my upcoming tour - all these tools bring to the stage. I and three additional musicians employ nearly 70 instruments. Among many very old analog, for they have a certain warmth and sound quality that can not be replaced by digital instruments.
What instruments and synthesizers, you began then?
When I started, I've actually used very few instruments. Usually is not so much longer anyway. It may also be difficult to have unlimited possibilities when working with the opportunities given to fewer instruments. So I started off with only two or three instruments. "Oxygen" I have recorded completely, for example, with only five or six instruments. Incidentally, the same tools I use are still on the stage.
So you combine the old with new?
Exactly. But when we speak of "old" instruments, we should note that they have great new features. Just like a Stradivarius violin from the 17th Century.
And how the whole thing is running live on stage?
"Oxygen" I've recorded with eight tracks, so we can play the four of us on stage completely live. The beauty of the new live project, it is also yes, just do not use pre-programmed sequencers and computers. Today, everything is preset, so it often takes a fairly predictable show. In our project, everything is really live. Because accidents can happen even once. But it was so close and so creates a "complicity" with the audience. We are not afraid of the audience. It's fun and allows you to do something different.
But they have no problem with new technologies?
No, I do indeed use, as I said, brand new, modern instruments on stage. For example, the laser harp, which I have made known, an instrument that you play with laser beams instead of strings. A very magical and breathtaking instrument. The laser harp is huge and spectacular, because their strings extend to the ceiling of the concert hall. I use many different and amazing instruments on stage.
You have your music on the stage so always connected with images and light ...
Yes, this is due to the difference to rock instruments like electric guitar. These instruments are designed for the stage for the performance. Then it was later placed microphones tuned to include them in studios. In electronic instruments, however, it is the other way: they are developed in studios and laboratories. They were never devised for performing with them on stage. We've got two hours behind the laptop is not very sexy and sensational. Usually makes it more fun to listen to this music at home. If someone buys a ticket for a concert, he wants more than to hear only music. Very early on, I am addressing this issue, I have tried to find a visual interface for my music, a kind of dialogue between visible light and sound.
What inspires you about the pictures and projections of the show and what will trigger this viewer?
I have always been interested in opera and theater, but in a crazy high-tech way. So, not like in a film that tells people a story. With my music, I rather make the soundtrack to a story or a movie, in which each individual creates new audiences for themselves. The graphics are no video clips, and so do not tell stories like a film. As you can see even just one. It's more about colors and unusual textures and something like that. And therefore, expand the sound by the audience totally immersed in the sensations and feelings of the combination of light and sound. The videos, for example, are more graphical designs. I currently work a lot with 3D. However, without glasses.
They have also done earlier but Soundtracks?
Yes, a few. My father was a renowned film music composer. I have seen more and more than that of my father and me because so far as never reingesteigert. This unfortunately I have missed many opportunities. Today, I am interested in soundtracks very much and I would like to see more. I have recently made a soundtrack for a German named director Volker Schlondorff. It was a real pleasure and a privilege to work with such a talented director.
Is there a movie you would like to make the music?
Yes, definitely. Many movies. Of course, science fiction movies such as "District 9" - a great movie that I've only seen recently. Also, all David Lynch films, Spielberg, but also German films, for example, by Wim Wenders. I was also very pleased to work with Volker Schlondorff and Peter Fleischmann, German directors, which I like very much. There are also many new British and French directors, where I would be very tempted by a collaboration. For me, the work is taken on a film score but above all a matter of teamwork, so the director and have the opportunity to be part of the project and did not receive a call three weeks before the publication of the production company and then make the music must . That's not for me.
So it may take a while for it the next Jean-Michel Jarre soundtrack available?
I am ready, but it depends much on the proper inquiry. And right now I am just working on the soundtrack to the film that created the visitors of the 2010s tour in her own head.
They now make 40 years of electronic music. How has your sound changed in all these years?
I would say it took a long time to improve the sound of the 70s too. Through high-definition in digital music, we can only been five or six years to compete with vinyl and analogue sound. Analogue sound is like a girl with makeup and digital sound has long been a split in pieces girl. And I like girls with make-up better. When the CD, it was of very poor quality. Today, we finally have 192 kHz and 24 bit - for all non-technical readers: So high-definition, high quality sound. We have a digital good, warm sound. That was very far from the case. I think the sound has evolved positively.
When you started making electronic music, their sound was something very individual and new. Your current album 'Teo & Téa "is a mixture of different, very modern electronic music pieces. Why is that?
"Teo & Téa was" for me really just an experiment. On the one hand, I was interested in producing something that is closer to the dance floor. But I think electronic music is understood since the beginning of the 90s as music for dance floors. Do you take, for example, artists like Air, Massive Attack and Portishead, then you see that all these people making electronic music away from the dance floor! Electronic music is not just for music and DJs. There is a much wider selection of electronic music. And the modern and futuristic kind of computer music is exactly the music you anhörst you away from the dancefloor. Many DJs have just started doing music for dance floor remix, and now want to take away the appropriate music for dance floors. "Teo & Téa" was an experiment that is not necessarily more interested in me today.
Has music that is heard by the outside dance floor, a longer half-life?
Yes, dance-floor music do you live to see through the body, through dance than through your ears. It is a physical rather than a listening experience. That is the reason why many people in the club be successful, think later, however, that they should be producers of music that you hear in your everyday life and at home.
Their influence on the French electronic music is fundamental and pioneering role. Also, look a little bit as the father of modern French artists such as Daft Punk, Justice, or Cassious?
Not as a father, because I would not presume. But I think that I have simply opened many doors. I can consider myself lucky to have started my work and my career at a time when nothing existed in electronic music. The people of my generation have explored all virgin territory. Anyone who is beginning to make electronic music or rock music, starts very old. That is to say with a great heritage of 40, 50 past years. That's hard. Of course, the many good points, but also many bad. In any case, there is now no longer that innocence and virginity. I am inspiration and influence for many different people, but I am now inspired by their own work. A positive exchange, I would say.
What can the young learn from you?
I think probably the work with textures, sounds, and how to solve structural problems. But even to approach music from different perspectives. For example, not only with the perspective of the dance floor.
And what can you learn from them?
The use of Groove and the fact that many of them inspired by a bunch of things from pop, rock and rap - that they make a mix of everything that has happened in the last 40 years, and thus achieve something very fresh. This is a very good source of ideas and Denkanregung for me.
What do you think is where electronic music evolved? Where she stands in the future?
It is definitely more organic, less dark and digital, more a hybrid between digital and analog. It's funny now all the software to see, imitating the analog instruments and emulated, even replicates the look. I say: Why not take the originals and develop computer pure digital approaches. Because there are things that can not digital, but also things that can be only one computer. I think this mixture and bridge between the analog and digital worlds in the future could produce much more interesting music.
They have played at the Pyramids, the Acropolis and the Eiffel Tower. Can we still topped?
My next trip is to bring all these great gigs in a manageable framework. Thus, for example, can avoid the rain and wind and in a more intimate environment, the total immersion in lighting, sound and graphics collectively enjoyed. It is a very special project between the venue and audience, is brought in the spectacle of elderly concerts in a controlled whole. A very unique and exciting experience.
Is there a concert unfulfilled wish? Where would you like to experience again?
In the universe would be great in a space station. That would be a good idea. On Earth, there are still many places. The project on which I am currently working on is for me very very interesting, because many people are often hundreds or even thousands of miles, come to my concerts. It's my turn to visit several parts, for example from Germany. This is very exciting for me. In Germany, I have already very many special Erinnerugen. As a child I often visited parts of my family in Berlin. Furthermore, Germany is a very important country for the development of electronic music. France and Germany are the countries where everything started. So it's a great honor and a privilege to present this project in Germany.
Kraftwerk have inspired you then? Or ran parallel with the development?
I think there was an independent parallel development. I always had much respect for Kraftwerk, but we had different approaches. More robotic, I have more organic, sensual. We have more or less started at the same time, but then there was no internet or something, so we were able to communicate easily.
Did you have contact with each other?
At the beginning of time, there was no real contact. Electronic music was very underground and no part of the official music scene. We, therefore, all sat in our laboratories and studios in our own world. It was not so easy to connect to that in the former rock and roll scene.
Later, you have come to know, however?
Yes! From time to time and in different places. I would really like to build something on which we would all can work together. Maybe that will someday again.
Your album "Music for Supermarkets" was pressed only once. As it went on the radio, you then have called for recording. Later, you have supported large commercial projects such as the iMac or work with Swatch. How does that fit?
Actually, "Music for Supermarkets" an act of protest against the industrialization of CDs that were sold as yogurt and toothpaste in supermarkets, in a very ugly piece of plastic, not at all sexy. I meant to say, we should respect and support of music in mind. For example, in the form of vinyl. Just something more attractive, as this piece of plastic. And I wanted to say: Watch out! One day, the music industry is dying out, and unfortunately I was right.
Can burn CD's today every child. What do you think of mp3s, downloads, and so on?
I am a spokesman for the IFPI [International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - protection of copyrights, stakeholders of the Phonographic Industry in the political arena, the fight against "music piracy"] in Brussels. I have asked a few years ago the European Parliament to enforce a kind of regulation on the protection of copyright for musicians, including the Internet. Today, more and more often the wrong people are being hunted. The company chasing children and tell them you're the bad guys and you make the illegal stuff. But actually it's different. If you listen to radio, you hear it for free. Nobody tells you that you do something illegal. Are you looking at a movie on TV, you see it more or less for free, no one says it is prohibited. Why is this so? Because the rights were bought by the broadcasters before you hear the music on the radio. The solution is, therefore, to pay internet providers to bring too. Those damn giant corporations make billions of dollars behind our backs and out are very fine in their gray and say that you should order the children, because they're the bad guys. They are by no means. They do behind our backs to the wealth. This is the real scandal and the real problem. They must, finally, like all radio and television stations are treated. That would recalibrate everything and help resolve the crisis.
A fairly big problem ...
Absolutely. But not really. Pretty simple actually: the need to pay (laughs)!
You can say you are a megastar, but we hear nothing from you in the international gossip press. Do you like the life of a celebrity not?
From time to time we read something about me, but I try to avoid that because I do not think that's very interesting. I try to keep my privacy and stay away from the paparazzi (laughs).
Source:
http://www.subway.de/klangwelt/themen/? ... 0d&hnr=267
Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum
lol, Jarre is awesome.