Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[swedeonion]

Hi guys,

We are pleased to finally present Magnetic Chants (aka Magnetic Fields 1975 aka La chance magnétique ), our follow-up to our mostly-beloved Equinoxe 1969! Premiers on Tues, March 18th at 9pm GMT.





Once again we've recreated a seminal JMJ album in a retro rock-band style, limiting ourselves to mostly acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments including guitars and drums, alongside the usual plethora of organs, pianos and a liberal and in some jurisdictions probably illegal use of Mellotron. It's taken a heck of a long time to put this one together (I think the earliest demos were back in 2012, and MF1 part A was largely recorded pre-COVID!). There are things that didn't quite work out, but eventually one has to say “enough!” and it's as good we're ever going to get it, so, heck, we present it as is, warts and all.

With some, we think, cool surprises that will likely be praised and damned in unequal measure, we hope you enjoy another retro reworking of a fan-favourite album. And check with the channel in a few weeks for single edits and lost cuts

Cheers!

Phil and Billy

[Dr_Jones]

Oooh, looking forward to this!

[Dr_Jones]

Listening now... This is great! Loving the saxophone solos and the guitar leads. The Concerts in China solo in Magnetic Fields 4, a Monty Python reference, and a surprise track.

Well done!

[swedeonion]

Listening now... This is great! Loving the saxophone solos and the guitar leads. The Concerts in China solo in Magnetic Fields 4, a Monty Python reference, and a surprise track.

Well done!

Thanks so much, Dr Jones! Really glad you enjoyed it! You can of course rip an MP3 of it for your archive in case it gets delisted. Shame my chat window wouldn't open, so I couldn't chat live, sorry, cos I was hoping to be there for it even if no-one else was! .

And yeah, the surprise track: I'm really proud of both the solos in that: I always thought the official solo (the one from La Defénse) was surprisingly disappointing. I feel these now sit really well with the solos in MF1 and 2.

And hey, perhaps you might very soon get a chance to hear that Lost Rumba you might or may not have caught a wee snatch of during the channel changes...

[Finaero]

I've listened through this a few times now, solid stuff! In fact, I'd say it has made me appreciate the second part of Magnetic Fields I more than before because I've mostly thought of it as a "prelude to MF1.3" or "proto-Zoolook" or somesuch

Loving the incorporation of non-album versions (e.g. MF1 @ Lyon and the CiC versions of MF2/4) as well

[swedeonion]

I've listened through this a few times now, solid stuff! In fact, I'd say it has made me appreciate the second part of Magnetic Fields I more than before because I've mostly thought of it as a “prelude to MF1.3” or “proto-Zoolook” or somesuch

Loving the incorporation of non-album versions (e.g. MF1 @ Lyon and the CiC versions of MF2/4) as well

Thank you, glad you're enjoying it too! I think I've heard it 100 times by now

One of the goals was to add those “Live” versions into a single album while making the other non-live tracks consistent with those live versions. I don't know if I've quite succeeded or not, but that was the premise.

TBH I've never been much of a fan of the original MF album, as like many I had the misfortune to hear and fall in love with CiC, and Lyon, first, and only got the studio album a year or two later. So I suspect for many a fan MF has a tendency to feel seriouslyunderwhelming and even outright disappointing if hearing the later versions first.

And yes, you're absolutely right on MF1b as I've taken to call it: you've put my original feelings for it into words.

But indeed, dissecting 1b for this project, though, it's a really clever piece of production and writing and I now agree is very under-rated. Not quite Equinoxe 2 level of under-rated, perhaps, but not far off.

And it's not just the very brilliant use and layering of samples—so easy today, but still probably very hard even with a Fairlight back in 1980—but I think that entire section may actually be in some kind of free time. At least, I couldn't figure out a reliable BPM or bar structure for it. And breaking it down I started identifying sounds and melodic riffs I don't think I'd ever really “heard” before, such as a minor rise then quite evil-sounding descending riff on the CMI wineglass from the original Fairlight library (though I used the similar wineglass sound from the Mellotron library) at the 7'00-7'30 mark. I did as best I personally could with MF1b, it's a little unfinished, but I think the ideas were sound. I was pleased with the use of the flexatone and wood stirring drum, though .

It was last section I did too, and struggled with it for months. I already had the film and tv clips on side B just cos I liked them and felt it gave the project its own identify, so the lightbulb moment of making a thematic link with actors and magnetism gave me a period-legitimate way of including contemporary samples to layer up and so MF1b suddenly became easier to finish (all the clips are from 1975 or earlier, other than a few library fx samples, oh, and one accidental use of a TV clip that actually turned out to be from 1976 ... ).

[plate of chips]

MF album has Proto Balearic Trance, Proto Latin House, Proto Drum N Bass.
As well as Progressive Ambient.

Very much enjoyed your version of MF album alongside Souvenir de Chine.

[Finaero]

As far as the sampled snippets go, so far I could only recognize the Dalek one and the snippet of the, uh, classical track right before Souvenir of China starts being the same one (but not the same rendition) as in the beginning of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here

[Dr_Jones]

Don't forget the chanting monks from Monty Python's Holy Grail movie

[Billy Bunt]

the, uh, classical track right before Souvenir of China starts being the same one (but not the same rendition) as in the beginning of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here

Hehe, yes, we couldn't resist adding that as a little extra gag.

Never previously knew what the piece was, tbh, so we did have to look it up from t'internets. Turns out it's the opening of the 4th Movement to Tchiakovsky's Symphony No.4 in F minor. (The version I sampled was Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra.)

[Billy Bunt]

Changing track, MF3 is a piece that often gets unfairly overlooked, and it's interesting to me that seems to be the case again, with all the focus on MFs 1, 2, 4, and 5/Souvenir!

I don't know if anyone's picked up on this, but MF3 is the China version too, as that features quite a different solo, with a much improved melody and a nicer, softer tone than the album version (IMO). It also took quite a few attempts to find percussion tones that actually worked, so was delighted with the final live reconstruction of that curious 7/4 loop using a ********, doubled with an ******** .

And the loop itself turned out to be even more fascinating doing a close listen to it. Whether Jarre recorded the loop live then sampled it back into his Fairlight, or just sampled it from a currently unknown source into the software, he's then mapped the loop across the keyboard. So as he changes chords, he's also changing the note playing the loop, meaning it actually changes pitch, which seems obvious to me listening now, but I'd never previously noticed it. And of course changing the pitch also changes its speed, further adding to the chaotic weirdness of the track timing, because it then becomes polyrhythmic, but only when outside its root key. No clue whether that was intentional or one of those happy accident, but it's amazingly cool it works.

Sadly, though, we couldn't adequately replicate that speed-change effect in reality. But we really did try.

We had the MF3 solo on cello early on, which I really quite liked, but in the end we opted to switch it out for a viola for, uh, reasons. Kinda wish I kept it on the cello now. I might publish the cello version a little down the line if anyone is curious. The magnetic chants book-ending it are Marvin and Borgnine from Emperor of the North Pole (1973).

[plate of chips]

MF3 is a piece that often gets unfairly overlooked
....
I don't know if anyone's picked up on this, but MF3 is the China version too, as that features quite a different solo, with a much improved melody and a nicer, softer tone than the album version (IMO).

MF3 is a mystical piece of music. China version even more mystical, including Domino's magical solo. One of my all time favourite instrumentals from any genre.
MF3 is beyond genre.

[Jote]

Truly incredible piece of work. Especially given that MF1.2 or MF3 are almost NEVER covered. I particularly liked MF4 - when I first heard the original I had no idea JMJ used latin rhythms, I only learned it years after. So it was really cool to now hear an actual latin take on the MF4, and the brass ensemble used in place of the vocoder is just *chef's kiss*

This defintely deserves (along with Equinoxe 1969) a lossless release.

I don't suppose you're going to tackle Zoolook, but wouldn't it be fun to make a Rendez-Vous 1976 next, especially given that the original RV2 was done in 1976 as "La belle et la bête" (and similarly RV3 as "La mort du cygne", not to mention "Le juge" from 1973)?

[Billy Bunt]

Truly incredible piece of work. Especially given that MF1.2 or MF3 are almost NEVER covered. I particularly liked MF4 - when I first heard the original I had no idea JMJ used latin rhythms, I only learned it years after. So it was really cool to now hear an actual latin take on the MF4, and the brass ensemble used in place of the vocoder is just *chef's kiss*

Thank you so much! Glad you liked it.

I don't suppose you're going to tackle Zoolook, but wouldn't it be fun to make a Rendez-Vous 1976 next, especially given that the original RV2 was done in 1976 as “La belle et la bête” (and similarly RV3 as “La mort du cygne”, not to mention “Le juge” from 1973)?

Yeah, Zoolook … no!

And Rendez-Vous? There is already the “Waterloo Sunset mix” of RV4 on our YT channel. I would love to improve of the poorer aspects of it, especially replacing the guitar solo with a sax, now we can do that, because of course we published the complete Ron's Piece just last Xmas. So I realise we are in fact already 1/3 the way there to Rendez-Vous 1976 now you mention it! But then, as you note, there are already versions of RV2 and 3 from the 70s, so I'm not immediately entirely sure what's distinctive we could bring to the party.

One of my favourite aspects of Equinoxe 1969 was effectively writing a whole new end track. It's still Equinoxe Part 8, a slow reprise of Part 5, but it's also something quite new and upbeat. Similarly, First Rendez-Vous is just an overture for the second bridge of Second. I don't know how we'd even begin to get that to work. No, no, I'd not be shoehorning in Moon Machine.

But never say never!

And hey, there's always that ska version of Revolutions I threatened on the YT comments the other day . Will have to break out my Best of The Specials CD.

[Dr_Jones]

A Ghost Town/Tokyo Kid mashup could work