OXYGÈNE

"Oxygene" is the "first" major album of Jean-Michel Jarre. The omnipresent very slow & sustained wah-wah effect applied on the intensely floating keyboards is the trademark of Jean-Michel Jarre. It definitely has similitudes with Tangerine Dream, especially the "Force Majeure" album and the Edgar Froese's "Stuntman" album. However, I would say the sequenced beat is ordinary compared to the very loud, bottom & sophisticated one provided by Chris Franke on the Tangerine Dream's albums. Plus, the sound is a bit less helium boosted like it is the case for the Tangerine Dream's albums around 1980. The atmosphere involved is all the time apocalyptic and very dramatic: it is a very serious & disturbing music. Jarre demonstrates a great capability to produce melodic patterns, not only upsetting atmospheres, a bit like Edgar Froese did. If you compare this album with the Tangerine Dream's ones, then you notice that Jarre here is a good 3 years ahead of the German band! The comparison with Klaus Schulze is inevitable: like Schulze, Jarre is sometimes linear, but it does not last for a very long time.

Rating: 4.5 stars

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