Zoolook by Jean Michel Jarre
Zoolook is the fourth overall mainstream studio album by Jean Michel Jarre, and released on Disques Dreyfus in 1984. It makes extensive use of digital recording techniques and sampling. It is considered by many fans as one of Jarre's most experimental albums to date. Much of the music is built up from singing and speech in 25 different languages, along with synthesizers, as well as more traditional instruments. Much of the tone of the album appears to be influenced by elements of musique concrète and by his time as a student of Pierre Schaeffer. Parts of the album were reworkings of material that had already appeared as sections of the album Music for Supermarkets, released the previous year. The track "Moon Machine" was recorded for this album but not included; it later appeared on a flexidisc in Keyboard Magazine (March 1986 issue), the 12-inch release of "Fourth Rendez-Vous" (1986), and the much later Images compilation album (1991). The voices heard on this album were based on recordings of speech and singing in numerous languages: Aboriginal, Afghan, Arabic, Balinese, Buhndi, Chinese, Dutch (Ethnicolor II - 3:15), English, Eskimo, French, German, Hungarian, Indian, Japanese, Malagasy, Malayan, Pygmy, Polish, Quechua, Russian, Sioux, Spanish, Swedish, Tibetan and Turkish. Zoolook is one of the first Compact Discs labeled as DDD: Digitally recorded, mixed and mastered.
This 1984 album is a bold, almost shocking shift in direction for synthesiser master Jean-Michel Jarre. On Jarre’s first studio collaboration with other musicians, Laurie Anderson’s intimate vocals animate the haunting "Diva", while Marcus Miller’s forceful, funky slap bass pushes things forward on “Ethnicolor”. Jarre’s complex, dizzying latticework of vocal and instrumental samples is as unexpected as it is thrilling. Building on the synth-pop influences of <i>Les Chants Magnétiques</i>, this is the sound of Jarre throwing all the doors wide open.
