Jean-Michel Jarre’s sequel to the groundbreaking original Equinoxe (1978) is likable. That’s part of the problem.
In the past ten years, electronic music has been crowned the king of all genres, further distorting and dissolving what “genre” even means. Nearly every pop song is created through the synth, with trap hip hop and even country music moving from samples and acoustic instruments, respectively, to patches, bass drops, and digital finger-snap beats.
In its formative years, the 1970s, few would have bet on such dominance. Oh, there were plenty of keyboards and synths in popular music, but they served a secondary, melodic purpose, in place to support the show, not run it entirely. However, there were musicians with a far more grandiose plan for electronics, mostly hailing from Europe or Eurocentric countries. Enamored with album-long explorations, the slow-build and slower decay of tones, and a sometimes grim demeanor, units such as Tangerine Dream and artists like Vangelis mined inspiration from heaven, hell, and everything in between. They were progressive and were not afraid to wave that flag.
Into this came Jarre and his one-two punch of Oxygene (1976) and Equinoxe. The tones still sounded alien, but his approach was more playful, still very European but not without a sense of humor. He was taking cues not from his estranged father, film composer Maurice Jarre, but from synth dance pioneers like Giorgio Moroder and pop experimenters like Gershon Kingsley (see “Popcorn” by Hot Butter). Nonetheless, there was a high-mindedness about what these electronic musicians were doing.
That got lost a bit in the 1980 when the first synth dominance came in tandem with new wave. Later on, electronic music would get lumped in with the New Age movement, interlocking such tones and drones with yoga, meditation, and rainsticks. Some of the artists diverted toward soundtrack composition. Others went headlong toward the New Age audience, and still others inched closer to dance and the nascent EDM scene. Jarre is more along that third line.
This is what makes Equinoxe Infinity an odd duck. Opening track “The Watchers” has that low bass thrum meant to link the new to the old, as the original Equinoxe does the same. Yet, that’s about as close to a link from one record to the other as I can make. The rest is not as insistent or as lovably weird as the original. It’s good, it is entertaining, but it doesn’t announce to the world that this is a proper heir to the original. (An aside: I was struck by some severe similarities of this album, and primarily “The Watchers,” to Vangelis’ 1988 album Direct. The influence is hard to avoid after hearing both.)
The rest of the album is pretty much the same thing. It’s all very easy to listen to (except for one track, which I’ll get to momentarily) and nothing here is unwelcoming. In fact, it goes out of its way to welcome you. It’s doing its damnedest to be likable, which I suppose the original tried to be as well, but didn’t expend so much energy to make it the dominant goal.
The one track on Equinoxe Infinity that irks me is “Infinity (Movement 6).” Here’s where I feel like Jarre just phoned it in. It is merely the same four-chord pop tune that producers have been beating to death infinitely. Jarre, of all people, could have taken these worn out old chords and turned them on their sides, made something bold and off-kilter with them, but instead, he slavishly follows the playbook. It’s a lot like the champion boxer throwing the fight.
Apart from that track, Equinoxe Infinity is pleasant and undistinguished. It could have been its own standalone concept and would have been perfectly comfortable in its own skin. When you invoke the name of the album it promises to be the successor to, you are setting expectations that simply aren’t met here. That’s a disappointment, because what electronic music really needs right now is a punk revolution that acts as an enema that flushes out the gimmickry and lazy writing so endemic to the genre. While certainly no travesty to music in general, this album ain’t that enema.