Gravity Boots

The '98-release "Tainted Bare Skin" of Netherlands's most famous and successful electronic musician Ron Boots is again one that hits the spot in many ways. It offers an astonishing 70 minutes of very well composed complex compositions burning out of your speakers. Varied sounding sequences come together with nicely layered cosmic sound scapes and powerful rhythms.

Simon Meader and Alan Bruzon both have long and varied musical pasts but they were brought together by their love of synthesizers, ambient music, Berlin School electronica, Ableton Live and VST soft synths. Their work is based around live improvised pieces including guitars. Part fourth in their series of albums inspired by Berlin School electronica.

In the late 1970s, Jean-Michel Jarre’s albums Oxygène and Équinoxe sold in their zillions, demonstrating that electronic music could be embraced by mainstream tastes. Almost 40 years later, the list of Jarre’s collaborators on Electronica 1: The Time Machine reads like a who’s who of electronic music, including Massive Attack, Moby, Air, Vince Clarke, Laurie Anderson and John Carpenter. True, by assembling such a stellar lineup, Jarre is reminding us of his status as a pioneer. But this does not feel like a cynical exercise - perhaps because Jarre was shrewd enough to work in person with his collaborators rather than remotely by sharing digital files. Jarre’s soaring washes of chords are present on tracks such as Conquistador (with French techno artist Gesaffelstein) and Zero Gravity (one of the last recordings of the late Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream)…

The Space Box contains three discs of prog rock and art rock, as well as trance-inducing Kraut rock, from the early '70s. Most of this music was inspired by the sonic experimentalism of late-'60s Pink Floyd – it builds on the long, free-form coda to "Interstellar Overdrive." There are subtle differences between the bands – for instance, Hawkwind tends to lean toward hard rock more than their contemporaries, who explore psychedelia and classical music flourishes. Even though the set is well compiled and contains some fine songs (Faust and Gong sound particularly good), there's no denying that there is a limited audience for this, even among prog-rock fans. It's experimental music that is oddly limited, working the same vibe, if not the same sound. If you're not a fanatic of space-rock, then the three discs of The Space Box will simply be too much to digest.

Jean-Michel Jarre - Electronica 1: The Time Machine (2015)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks) | cuesheets+log | 67:35 mins | covers+booklet | 143 + 494 Mb
Style: Electronic, Ambient, New Age | Label: Sony Music

The French synthesizer icon has been teasing out details on the new album since April, revealing various high profile collaborators involved with the record. Electronica 1: The Time Machine is in fact a fully collaborative effort: all of its 16 tracks have Jarre working with another producer.