Jean-Michel Jarre OXYMORE 180g 2LP

Jean-Michel Jarre, the godfather of electronic music, releases his 22nd studio album, OXYMORE. The album's first single, "BRUTALISM," is an electronic music masterpiece with experimental psychedelic elements and strong driving beats.

OXYMORE has been conceived as an immersive work in a multi-channel and 3D binaural version, and is the first commercial release of this stature which pushes the future of musical audio and sound to this new level.

Jarre explains: "In real life stereo does not exist, our audio field is 360 degrees. Today, technology allows us to explore composition in spatial audio and that opens a whole new experience for us musicians in the creative process. Music will be more easily experienced by anyone with regular headphones or the new generations of sound systems, offering a more physical and natural way of listening to sound and music in full immersion."

The album is also a tribute to the roots of French electronic music and an homage to the late French composer Pierre Henry. Henry was an iconic figure in electronic and classical music, and one of Jarre's influences at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) where he studied. Since his death in 2017, Henry's widow provided Jarre with original sounds which had been intended for use in this collaboration.

OXYMORE is a musical journey back-and-forth between analogue and digital sounds. Jarre explains: "Pierre's work inspired me for OXYMORE and working around some soundbites of his led me down a creative path that I may not have taken otherwise. I chose some of his sounds precisely from one track to another. OXYMORE is also a tribute to the French way of approaching modern music, electroacoustic music, and my early studies at the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) where Pierre definitely influenced the future of electronic music worldwide, along with Pierre Shaeffer."

Jarre's new project is inspired by the French movement 'musique concrete', a genre of music composition that utilises recorded sounds as raw material. The movement was first developed in the 1940s and went on to revolutionise the way music is produced. With OXYMORE, Jarre takes this concept and reinvents it with the tools of today. "I always thought that musique concrete, or electroacoustic music, actually had heavy and delicate aspects," he expands. "So, in OXYMORE, I tried to include those two elements; Pierre Henry's music, but also electroacoustic music… as a kind of oxymoron, it stands on the pillars of delicate, intricate, subtle sounds and stronger, forceful, raw sounds."

A controlled, raw and festive bacchanal of sound.

A revolution in sound.