The 3Arena-bound Godfather of Electro, Jean-Michel Jarre, has confirmed to Hot Press that he’s been working with Damon Albarn.
“Yes, we’ve spent some time together in my recording studio,” the French superstar says. “It’s Damon’s project so I’ll leave it to him to do the revealing, which is what I asked of the collaborators on my two Electronica albums. I wanted as much as possible for it to be a surprise, like it would have been in the ‘70s or ‘80s before the internet made it impossible to keep anything secret!
“What I will say is that I was very happy to work with such a great, great artist. He’s such a unique, eclectic animal. To go from Blur to Chinese opera to Malian music and do them all so well takes a special talent. On top of that, he’s also a really nice guy. If the collaboration comes to light – and you never know with these things – it will I think be quite special.”
It’s fair to say that we’re drooling with anticipation.
Released in May, Electronica 2: The Heart Of Noise includes Peaches, Pet Shop Boys, Cyndi Lauper, Gary Numan, Julia Holter, Hans Zimmer and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden among its roll-call of guests. Its Electronica 1: The Time Machine predecessor was no less star-studded with Vince Clarke, Laurie Anderson, Pete Townshend, Robert Del Naja, Moby, Armin Van Buuren, Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter, Little Boots and Fuck Buttons all featuring.
You’ll be able to hear a hefty dollop of both when Jean-Michel hits Dublin on October 9.
As reported yesterday on hotpress.com, Jarre was on stage in Nîmes’ Roman amphitheatre on Thursday night when the Nice terror attack took place.
Earlier in the day, he’d talked to our man Stuart Clark about last November’s Paris shootings and the climate of fear that exists in France.
“For the first time in my life I felt we were in a state of war,” he proffered. “The night of the Bataclan I was in the studio recording with this amazing artist called Christophe. We switched off our phones and were cut off from the outside world. When I came back home at five or six o’clock in the morning, the whole of Paris was silent. There were no lights, just police cars everywhere with no sirens and just side-lights. The mentality in France has changed because of it. We’re all more scared and suspicious which is, I’m afraid, what these people want.”