Release data:

Jean Michel Jarre – Oxygene (New Master recording)
CD & DVD, EMI/Capitol, 2007

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of his classic album “Oxygene”, Jean Michel Jarre had the plan to completely re-record the original music with the original instruments.

The outcome on the cd is great, as Jarre sticked to the original music, which still shines in all its mystery, brightness and power after all these years. The level of background noise has been decreased a lot as well.

In addition, Jarre decided he also wanted to perform the complete album live. This event took place at the small Belgium Alfacam studios, where the whole occasion was also filmed in 2D and 3D. To actually play the whole album, Jarre needed eight hands, so he asked his musical pals Claude Samard, Francis Rimbert and Dominique Perrier to play along with him.

As could be expected, Jarre couldn’t resist to contribute a few odds and ends to the project: a prelude and three different variations.

Well, it is very nice to see a whole bunch of old vintage gear in action, and Jarre and his pals doing quite some hard work to make the job work, as almost nothing really happened live on stage on various previous live occasions.

The overall outcome is rather nice, but I think it shouldn’t be compared that much to the previous studio recording, as there are quite some improvised sections and additions next to an overall slower pace of the music.
The improvisations and slight changes aren’t always working out that fancy. Especially Jarre’s solo on the Moog Liberation in the second half of the recording is more distracting than nice, and I’m also tempted to believe that not all you hear during the live-in your-living-room act is actually played live.

The live-set on the dvd can be viewed in 2D and 3D (the latter mostly applies to the backdrop), although I personally prefer the 2D version with genuine colours and set-up.

The bonus on the 80 minute dvd contains short items on the making of, a brief introduction by Jarre on the various vintage instruments and a 3D gallery of images.

All in all, I think this item is surely something to check out, also considering all efforts and troubles to get to this result. On the other hand, the live performance on the dvd doesn’t really convince me music wise as I think the original still sounds 100 times better.

Website: jeanmicheljarre.com

You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Jean Michel Jarre artist page