I've been listening to electronic music for 25 years and have been running this very electronic music magazine for 22 years, so when a pioneer of electronic music like Jean-Michel Jarre makes a series of albums called "Electronica" featuring dozens of guests from the early stages of electronic music to the new comers of the genre, it sure does certainly not go unnoticed in my book! Quiet the contrary!

"Electronica 1: The Time Machine" and "Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise" came out in late 2015 and early 2016 respectively and truly celebrate the entire span of growth and evolution of the elctronic music genre throughout the last 4 decades by bringing together the leading voices of the genre as well as some interesting artists that have differing degrees of connection to it.

Volume 1 features some true early visionaries of the genre like the amazing Laurie Anderson and Tangerine Dream, as well as mainstream names such as Moby, Massive Attack, Armin Van Buuren and possibly unexpected names such as John Carpenter, Lang Lang, Pete Townshend and various other really interesting artists (Boys Noize, M83, Air, Vince Clarke, Littel Boots, Fuck Buttons, Gesaffelstein).

Volume 2 re-invites some of the names from Volume 1 and then takes it to the next level with an equally stunning array of names, including Pet Shop Boys, Gary Numan, Yello, Jeff Mills, The Orb as well as potentially unexpected ones such as Primal Scream, Cyndi Lauper, Hans Zimmer and then so many others worthy of attention (Rone, Julia Holter, Peaches, Sébastien Tellier, Siriusmo, Chrisphe) as well as some truly unexpected ones like Edward Snowden himself (more on that later!).

The album pretty much is a who's who of electronic music history and stylistically ranges from dance-tracks to more EDM/EBM inspired tracks with a good balance of instrumental tracks and tracks that feature vocalists. Some of the vocal cuts flirt with pop in a way that is even chart-suitable. If you know the artists JMJ is collaborating with the listening experience will be some much more fun because you can truly recognize the character and style, or sometimes simply the unique voice, of the collaborator.

I recently went to a talk event that Jean-Michel held in NYC and found out some very interesting details about these albums. One thing that truly impressed me is that JMJ insisted on making it a truly collaborative effort, so this is not one of those albums made by sending files around the globe, but rather JMJ travelled to meet with all the artists involved to be in the same room with them and actually co-write/compose/arrange everything together. Needless to say it took years and many miles of travel to finish this record, all the more reason you should check out the fruits of his labour!!!

I spent about two weeks listening to these two albums at least 4-5 times each and I've come to the realization (something JMJ also touched upon in his talk event) that electronic music is truly timeless. Some of the guests on these album are in their 20es others are in their 60es and it's hard to "age" these collaborations if you don't know who's on the track you are listening to. You go ahead and try!

One of the guests that intrigued me the most was Edward Snowden, partially because he is the only non-musical guest of the album, but also because I am a huge supporter, fan and sympathiser of Snowden, of what he's done and what he stands for (being somebody who truly believes in freedom, transparency and justice and who put his life on the line for it). Snowden met JMJ in Moscow (a meeting that JMJ explained was facilitated by the Guardian and Snowden's lawyers) and JMJ interviewed him and used bits of that recording in a track, Jarre also mentioned (in the talk) that one of his close relatives was a political activist in France and that he closely identifies with Snowden's cause. He also commented on how this collaboration was very newsworthy in Europe but seems to have been largely ignored in the US... Such a pity!

I've asked JMJ what he thinks of the future of music creation and distribution and he theorized that one of the things we might see in the future is a collaboration with machines, a sort of music-ex-machina scenario, and he even mentioned that it might be the subject of an "Electronica 3" or "Electronica 4" album, so while I hope he will get to another "Electronica" volume before machines are fully capable of making music without human intervention, at least there is hope for more volumes to come...

Stay tuned!