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Saturday, 12 September 2026

Jean-Michel Jarre - AERO (2004)

AERO (Anthology of Electronic Revisited Originals) is a 2004 compilation album by electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre, newly recorded in 5.1 surround sound and released by Warner Music on 20 September 2004. 
In addition to the re-recorded classic tracks, the album contains three new tunes (the title track which is a rework of "Je Me Souviens", from Jarre's 2000 album Métamorphoses, using the same main melody but with no vocals) and a bonus live track. 
All tracks are sewn together through surround-sound "Scenes".
Feeling both his cultural cachet and compositional skills starting to slip, Jarre decided to re-record a bunch of his back catalogue in order to form a new album of sorts. 
It is sort of like Kraftwerk's The Mix in that it attempts to bring a bunch of old electronica up to date (without changing the sounds much), but there is a bit more going on here conceptually. 
In between tracks you hear what sounds like a person walking through rain and opening doors, after which you sometimes hear brief snippets of Jarre tracks that didn't make the cut. 
This plays into the album's central feature/gimmick, the 5.1 surround recording which pans all over the place. Admittedly this is pretty cool on the right system but at the same time it gives the music a sort of holographic quality which messes with my brain.
As with Kraftwerk these re-recordings do beg the question of what you can really do with compositions that were pretty much done perfectly in the first place, especially since the "vintage" analogue sound was a huge part of what makes them so endearing in the first place. 
To Jarre's credit the 'updates' are generally pretty tasteful - most radical perhaps is an overlaid drum part on "Equinoxe 4". 
Nothing that'll make you throw away your old CDs but they're still quite nice. 
There are also three new tracks, mostly done in the style of his recent ambient trance stuff - these tunes are better than the bulk of Sessions 2000 and Geometry of Love but I suppose that ain't saying much.
"For AERO, I wanted to revisit in 5.1 some existing tracks in order to give them that space I had imagined when I originally composed them, and also to compose some new tracks for this new technology. 
All of the existing tracks in AERO have been performed with the original instruments, re-recorded and spatially arranged/spatialised for this new dimensional sound experience without betraying their very essence." - Jean-Michel Jarre, August 2004.


Tracklist

1.  Aero Opening / Scene 1 - 0:50
2.  Oxygene 2 / Scene 2 - 7:41
3.  Aero - 3:09
4.  Equinoxe 8 - 1:24
5.  Oxygene 4 / Scene 3 - 5:05
6.  Souvenir of China / Scene 4 - 4:46
7.  Aerology / Scene 5 - 3:40
8.  Equinoxe 3 / Scene 6 - 6:33
9.  Equinoxe 4 / Scene 7 - 6:46
10.  Last Rendez-Vous / Scene 8 - 5:08
       Saxophone - Eric Seva
11.  Zoolookology / Scene 9 - 3:54
12.  Aerozone / Scene 10 - 4:56
13.  Magnetic Fields 1 / Scene 11 - 5:59
       Theremin - Jean Michel Jarre
14.  Chronology 6 - 4:55
15.  Rendez-Vous 4 (Live Version) (recorded at the 2002 AERO concert) - 7:34
       Featuring [Special Appearance] – Safri Duo


Companies, etc.
All tracks specially performed, produced and recorded in 96 khz/24 bits for Aero 5.1 surround and super-stereo at JMJ Studio France


Notes
Released:  20 September 2004
Recorded:  2004 at Croissy Studio
Genre:  Electronic
Length: 73:42
Producer:  Jean-Michel Jarre

Label - Warner Music

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