Planet Jarre

Most career retrospectives run front to back. Planet Jarre doesn't. Going through the body of his existing work, Jarre concluded he had been writing in four quite different modes all along, and built the collection around them instead of around dates — four different worlds that together make up his own planet.

Soundscapes gathers the long, atmospheric pieces, where his classical training and love of film scoring show most clearly: "Oxygene 1", "Equinoxe 2", "Chronology 1", alongside newer work like "The Heart of Noise (Origin)". Themescollects the melodies — "Oxygene 2" and "4", "Equinoxe 4", "Zoolookologie", "Industrial Revolution Part 2". Sequencesis built on the repetitive, hypnotic patterns only electronic instruments can produce, and carries two new tracks, "Coachella Opening" and "Herbalizer". Explorations & Early Works reaches into the archive, including the previously unreleased demo of Music for Supermarkets — the 1983 project pressed as a single copy and auctioned off — and "Erosmachine", from 1969 and the very beginning.

Jarre selected all 41 tracks himself and handled the remastering, retouching a number of them in the process: new mixes of "Fourth Rendez-Vous" and "Chronology Part 4", a trance-leaning rework of "Zoolookologie", and a version of "Magnetic Fields Part 2" built from the 1982 Concerts in China tapes with the crowd stripped out and new synths layered on.

Released 14 September 2018 as 2CD and as a 4LP box in coffee-table book format, with a download card for high-resolution files and 5.1 content.