Description
- Magnetic Fields Part 1 [17:57]
- Magnetic Fields Part 2 [5:25]
- Magnetic Fields Part 3 [2:55]
- Magnetic Fields Part 4 [6:13]
- Magnetic Fields Part 5 [3:31]
Third album
Jean Michel Jarre – Magnetic fields
€ 8,72
Released: 1981 By Dreyfuss
1 in stock
Additional information
| Weight | 105 g |
|---|---|
| Medium | CD |
| Package | Jewel Case |
Markus Melcher / France –
Personally it’s still very high creative, maybe only the most popular part 2 is weaker somehow, while the melody is catchy the rhythmic is a little redundant.Maybe also part 5 is also to much nostalgic stuff made with massive organ and rhythmic box, a trick Jarre is using often ending his albums. Best part is probably the 20 minutes part 1 actually divided in 3 parts.First and last from part 1 are the sequenced part with galloping motion with some strong heat fever feeling also with very nice chord changes even melodic parts are interesting, like the various analog effects who were used, the new digital parts came from the mighty (and unique at the time Fairlight CMI), weird noises or voices with early sampling made it so special even if more in these early eighties times.
The middle part is full of layering waves full of strange voices and falling sounds and gimmicks, remains a little Oxygene-Equinoxe” somehow
Ashley Pomeroy –
Reaching number 9 in the UK album charts in 1981, this was Jean Michel Jarre‘s third proper album, and marked something of a break from the previous two albums. The addition of an expensive Fairlight sampling workstation to his sonic arsenal resulted in a less ambient sound, with sampled percussion and a crisp, digital sheen that now sounds extremely charming. Mixing tape recordings of printing presses, oodles of vocal samples (something he would explore more fully on ‘Zoolook’), and some happy, bouncy tunes this is warmer and more oddball than the often frigid ‘Oxygene’ and ‘Equinoxe’, and much less ‘spacey’.
Track one takes up the whole first ‘side’ of the record, and comprises a bouncy latin synth arpeggio, an ambient interlude, and a driving dancey track that tails off into the kind of melodic wash that Jarre does perfectly. ‘Side two’ opens with a catchy single, before moving on to another ambient piece (with printing presses standing in for shunting trains), and a final big tune. The final track is, depending on your mood, either arch irony or a wry self-parody – combining an ultra-cheesy rhumba beat with a lounge-core tune it finishes the album abruptly.
The LP version has some nice packaging, including some color photographs of Jarre‘s car and the Fairlight in action, whilst the CD has bitty little black and white reproductions. The album isn’t very long, and the majority of the tracks have appeared on other compilations (‘The Essential’ had bits of everything except part 3), but, like Jarre‘s other records of the time, it’s totally unique. Nobody else had the inclination to take then-offputtingly complex technology and create simple, direct melodies with it.
2000. Ashley Pomeroy
Colin Neal –
Magnetic Fields is a highly charged studio album from the start of the eighties. It consists of 5 parts performed on new digital synths the Fairlight” which Jarre was one of the first people to get his hands on. It’s a good album