Les chants magnétiques

Release type:What's this?
studio album
First released:
1981

Overview Edit

Magnetic Fields (French title: Les Chants Magnétiques) is the third mainstream album by Jean Michel Jarre (his fifth album in all), released on Disques Dreyfus in 1981. The album was one of the first records to use sampling as a musical element and represents a departure from the sound of Jarre's previous efforts, although his distinct style is instantly recognizable throughout the duration of the album. For this album Jarre was partly inspired by the works of Andy Warhol and a fascination with the reproducibility of digital sound.

The long first track consists of three distinct movements, the slower second movement being heavily laden with sample work, foreshadowing the sound of Jarre's 1984 album Zoolook.

The album reached #6 in the UK charts and #98 in the US charts.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_Fields_(album). Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

This particular version Edit

Record label:
unknown
Catalog number:
36142
Release dates:
  • May 1 1994

Genres

Electronic, Electronica, Meditation, New Age. Vote on Genres

What do Amazon.com customers think?

5 stars Magnetic fields and that damn Rumba
"les chants magnetiques" is a first JMJ album that was created with digital synths and fairight synthesiser. It sounds really more modern that his previous albums like "Oxygen" or "Equinoxe".

The first four parts including 17 minutes long epic part 1 and funky part 2 (which is absolute jarre classic tune) are almost flawless. Each track flows perfectly into another. The whole atmosphere of "les chants..." is much more de-humanized than "equinoxe".Some wierd samples of machines,trains,clocks...co…
Written by Mike Chadwick
2 stars Not up to par
Of the eight JMJ albums I have, this is my least favorite. The melodies are not that compelling and the sound textures are a bit odd (the digital sound effects don't seem all that interesting). I bought this after listening to Les Concerts En Chine (The Concerts in China), in which JMJ performs all of these pieces live. I much prefer the live performances, which are not dramatically different but seem to have more punch than the studio versions.

Oxygene is still his best, with Oxygene 7-13 an a…
Written by C. S. Junker "soul_survivor"

Track listing Edit

  • CD

    format:
    number:
    title:
    number name artist hh:mm:ss
    1
    Les chants magnétiques, Part 1
    17:50
    2
    Les chants magnétiques, Part 2
    5:25
    3
    Les chants magnétiques, Part 3
    2:54
    4
    Les chants magnétiques, Part 4
    6:13
    5
    Les chants magnétiques, Part 5
    3:29

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Other versions Edit

Les chants magnétiques 5 tracks format: 1 x vinyl
record label: Disques Dreyfus
catalog number: DLP 2001
release dates: 1981 in France
view details
Les chants magnétiques 5 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Disques Dreyfus
catalog number: 36142
release dates: May 1 1994
view details
Les chants magnétiques 5 tracks format: 1 x vinyl
record label: Disques Dreyfus
catalog number: 36142
release dates: 1981 in France
view details
Les chants magnétiques 5 tracks format: 1 x CD
catalog number: 36142
release dates: May 1 1994
view details
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