jean michel jarre

It's not like Ben Vaughn needs a calling card into the world of television soundtracks, his music has apparently been used in That 70s Show and Third Rock From the Sun. But this delightfully referential album -- recorded with the cream of LA session players who are in on the game -- includes nods to everyone from Ennio Morricone to whoever...
> music/3466/ben-vaughn-designs-in-music-vampisoul-southbound/

As half of Dead Can Dance (alongside Lisa Gerrard), Perry was responsible for impressive sonic landscapes which owed a little to a kind of geographically amorphous "world music" and also to cinema soundtracks. Here, more than a decade after his previous solo outing, he embarks on gloomy sounding, authoratively-delivered meditations...
> music/3413/brendan-perry-ark-cooking-vinyl/

And in this further installment, our heroes effect a blend of Barrett-era Floyd (given a techno twist) and Baba O'Reilly-meets-Pseudo Echo (on the soundstage of Bladerunner) then set their control to the heart of dancefloor synthedelic music. Add some pure pop vocals out of the Brian Wilson school with a few nods to Kraftwerk's Motorik...
> music/3227/the-chemical-brothers-further-parlophone/

Some albums are very hard to describe, this one by an ambient, slightly trippy duo from California isn't: imagine gentle Neil Young-folk coming at you from a distance but wrapped in a kind of warm synth sound like Vangelis or Kitaro (without the twee bits). Titles like Our Gentle Life Together, Secrets of the Fall, Moonlight/Twilight and...
> music/2522/odawas-the-blue-depths-rhythmethod/

For some reason I largely missed the Tubular Bells phenomenon back in '73 when the album was orginally released and launched the careers of 19 year old multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield and Richard Branson (on whose Virgin label it originally came out). I caught the famous little bit when it was used in The Exorcist, but even when the...
> music/2480/mike-oldfield-tubular-bells-the-2009-stereo-mixes-universal/

Not only does this excellent overview of the German electronic scene come in at a whopping and thorough three hours, but it also has good timing: it is released just as Kraftwerk make a rare return appearance in New Zealand. This ambitious (but not officially sanctioned) look at Kraftwerk's place in the techno-cosmos places the group within...
> film/1996/best-of-elsewhere-dvds-2008-kraftwerk-and-the-electronic-revolution-dvd/

Only a rare band could count among its admirers and proselytisers the young Johnny Rotten, David Bowie and Brian Eno, eccentric UK rocker Julian Cope, and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream. Oh, and various contemporary classical composers, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and post-hippie rock fans. But then, Can from Germany were a...
> essentialelsewhere/809/can-tago-mago-1971/

As mentioned in the previous posting of the Travis and Fripp album, when guitarist Fripp got into the studio alongside musician-without-portfolio Brian Eno for the albums Evening Star and No Pussyfooting in the early 70s a particular magic was created. Not ambient music (that was to follow from Eno) but more like music as an emotional...
> music/1771/fripp-and-eno-beyond-even-1992-2006-opal-southbound/

Sometimes in history there comes that rare conjunction of the man, the time and his art.In the case of Jean Michel Jarre it seemed they were all out of alignment. He could not have chosen a more inhospitable climate into which release his work.Jarre's album Oxygene came out in France in 1976 but wasn't given release in Britain until the...
> essentialelsewhere/816/jean-michel-jarre-oxygene-1977/

Okay, this is for those who remember playing Frogger and being thrilled by the new technology. This collection is of people using vintage video game systems to play the music of electro-pioneers Kraftwerk, which does make some kind of bent sense. It is kinda lo-fi fun, especially if you know Kraftwerk's extensive catalogue. Although...
> music/1081/8-bit-operators-the-music-of-kraftwerk-receptor-emi/

This evocative 15-track collection draws on Gerrard's extensive soundtrack work (material from Gladiator, Whale Rider and Ali are included here), her solo albums, and those with Dead Can Dance. Given that range, what is apparent from these tracks is how singular her musical vision has been: wordless and ethereal vocals imbued with a...
> music/1062/lisa-gerrard-lisa-gerrard-4ad/