Electronica 2 – The Heart of Noise is a tribute to Luigi Russolo who proposed in 1913 in his futurist manifesto the Art of Noises a number of conclusions about how electronics and other technology will allow futurist musicians to "substitute for the limited variety of timbres that the orchestra possesses today the infinite variety of timbres in noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms". Russolo states that ''noise" first came into existence as the result of 19th century machines.

Here is an album trailer on YouTube – https://youtu.be/6pBUmLpY_qk.

As you can see in the video – as with the Electrionica 1, Jarre travels to around the globe visiting guest artists on their own turf. Guest artists include Pet Shop Boys, Rone, Julia Holter, Primal Scream, Gary Numan, Hans Zimmer, Edward Snowden, Peaches, Sébastien Tellier, The Orb, Siriusmo, Yello, Jeff Mills, Cyndi Lauper and Christophe.

Nice to see he shares my love for the Nord Lead :^)

More on this from Jarre's Facebook page:

Six years ago I had this idea of merging DNA with musicians and artists of different generations, linked, directly or indirectly, to electronic music in a kind of sharing process in a world where we're more isolated than ever by our smartphones and the Internet. In electronic music, unlike rock or jazz, we artists are isolated, like painters in their ateliers. That's something I wanted to explore, to really collaborate in person, rather than just share sound files on email. To combine my world with those of other people whom I respect, love and admire from more than five decades of electronic music. The idea is very much in phase with our times, to merge communities, celebrate the connections, but in a real, physical, organic, natural way.

I had no idea it was possible to work with so many artists on an album and still have a unity and cohesiveness of colors and sounds. For me, music is the most interactive mode of expression in ways that don't depend on a narrative. You can create your own film in your imagination. The kind of artists I worked with are more than just people writing songs. They create their own, very specific world. They are not telling a story, but allowing you to create your own. Every track on Electronica is an invitation for a journey, not in a new age sense, but in a very dynamic, dark, edgy, joyful or melancholic one. It's a trip where you visit different tribes of people, but at the end of the day, they're all part of the same family.

Electronica is a once in a lifetime project for me. It means the world to me to be trusted by so many incredible artist who became part of this journey. Its not over yet – See you on the road!

Yours,

Jean-Michel Jarre

More info at http://jeanmicheljarre.com. Also note that Jarre is out on tour this summer.

► iTunes: http://smarturl.it/Electonica2_iTunes

► Amazon: http://smarturl.it/Electronica2_AmaCD

► AmazonMp3: http://smarturl.it/Electronica2_AmaMp3

► AppleMusic: http://smarturl.it/Electronica2_AppleMu

► Spotify: http://smarturl.it/Electronica2_Stream

Brian Eno’s new album The Ship is here.

“Humankind seems to teeter between hubris and paranoia: the hubris of our ever-growing power contrasts with the paranoia that we’re permanently and increasingly under threat. At the zenith we realize we have to come down again… we know that we have more than we deserve or can defend, so we become nervous. Somebody, something is going to take it all from us: that is the dread of the wealthy. Paranoia leads to defensiveness, and we all end up in the trenches facing each other across the mud.

On a musical level, I wanted to make a record of songs that didn’t rely on the normal underpinnings of rhythmic structure and chord progressions but which allowed voices to exist in their own space and time, like events in a landscape. I wanted to place sonic events in a free, open space.

One of the starting points was my fascination with the First World War, that extraordinary trans-cultural madness that arose out of a clash of hubris between empires. It followed immediately after the sinking of the Titanic, which to me is its analogue. The Titanic was the Unsinkable Ship, the apex of human technical power, set to be Man’s greatest triumph over nature. The First World War was the war of materiel, ‘over by Christmas’, set to be the triumph of Will and Steel over humanity. The catastrophic failure of each set the stage for a century of dramatic experiments with the relationships between humans and the worlds they make for themselves.

I was thinking of those vast dun Belgian fields where the First World War was agonizingly ground out; and the vast deep ocean where the Titanic sank; and how little difference all that human hope and disappointment made to it. They persist and we pass in a cloud of chatter.

Written in the late sixties, Lou Reed’s song ‘I’m Set Free’ seems even more relevant now than it did then. Perhaps anybody who’s read Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens’ will recognize the quiet irony of “I’m set free to find a new illusion”… and its implication that when we step out of our story we don’t step into ‘the truth’ – whatever that might be – but into another story.

This album is a succession of interleaved stories. Some of them I know, some of them I’m discovering now in the making of them.

Wave. After. Wave. After. Wave.”

“The Ship” on YouTube https://youtu.be/pn1riJSHhkY.

 “Fickle Sun (iii) I’m Set Free” on YouTube https://youtu.be/Ym4hmN_5ns0.

The album is available on:
• iTunes
• Amazon
•  Spotify

In addition to digital downloads there are various Collector’s editions on CD & vinyl on Bleep.

More info at – http://www.brian-eno.net.