CHRONOLOGIE

As the title suggest, this is a concept album about time, as you can hear many references to time in the music featured here, and it's also one of Jarre's very best albums released after the 80's and bears some similarity to earlier stuff like Magnetic Fields or Rendez-Vous, only with a more modern sound to it. The music varies from dreamy ambient to upbeat electronica and even house sometimes, and the tracks show good variation from each other. The 11 minute opening track is one of Jarre's finest, a symphonic electronica suite with some amazing dynamics, before fading into the fast paced Part 2 that properly introduces the beats and sequencers and is another classic together with Part 6. Part 4 is obviously the catchiest piece here, while stuff like Part 3, Part 7 and the intro to Part 5 shows the mellower and more introspective sides to the album for a great effect. It's another very good album overall and should appeal to most Jarre fans.

This "Chronologie" opens on a superb and grandiose "Part I" (not very original, I admit. I mean the title). It is a truly magical prog electronic song in line with his best and more known so far.

Actually, it levels the masters of the genre (prog electronic) and these wonderful keyboards lines are so moving, so melodic, and so skilled: extremely good and in some way this artist shows all of his talent throughout the decades.

Of course, he was not as prolific as Schulze or TD, but almost each of his effort so far (if you would except his first two albums as well as "Zoolook" was of good to high quality and this less known "Chronologie" is quite decent as well.

A good album, offering different atmospheres: after the heavenly opening, "Part II" is totally different. Bombastic, speedy, pop, commercial, joyful and entertaining. JM also reverts to his debut with "Part III" which sounds very much as a piece from "Les Granges Brûlées". A deep coldness combined with a sculptural melody. Another good song (third in a row).

The second half of the album is less interesting I'm afraid: while "Part IV" is radio friendly, I quite dislike the more techno oriented "Part V". At the end of the day, the glorifying closing part refreshes the whole which I rate with three stars. It started much more promising though.