JEAN-MICHEL JARRE

The Concerts In China: 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition SONY

French synth maestro’s 1981 shows given sonic touch-up.

Plenty of musicians are referred to as “groundbreaking”, but when Jean-Michel Jarre played five shows in Shanghai and Beijing in 1981 he really was opening up new territory. No Western artist had played in communist China since the late Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution brutally expunged all such decadent influence from the People’s Republic, and although the electronic composer and synthscapist’s instrumental style meant there were no potentially corrupting lyrics to offend his hosts with, it was still a step into the unknown for both of them.

With this remaster adding new pinsharp clarity to the sound, 40 years on it still sounds like the future’s being beamed in from somewhere in a distant galaxy. His most famous work, 1976’s Oxygène, doesn’t make it into the set, but Équinoxe and Magnetic Fields are well represented – the latter being his latest studio release at that point – and Jarre’s signature Fairlight and laser harp sounds seem to streak through the skies like the light beams that invariably accompanied his shows. The most curious moment is Fishing Junks At Sunset, in which Jarre turns a traditional Chinese song into an hybrid of Southeast Asian folk and wistful electronica with help from The Peking Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra.

Incredibly, it was the first time he had performed on stage with other musicians, in contrast to his usual oneman show approach, and it forms the most striking break of pace within the set as either side we’re back on more familiar territory with two excerpts from Équinoxe and the fizzy synthpop confection of Orient Express. The new material presented here is more progressive in feel, though, such as the motorik techno thrum of Arpegiateur and the slow-building, atmospheric Nuit A Shanghai, and it makes for a pretty diverse set that’s barely dated over four decades – possibly because electronic music influenced by the likes of Jarre is still all around us.