Jean-Michel Jarre "Zoolook" (1984)

Zoolook
release date: Nov. 1984
format: cd (2015 remaster - 30th Anniversary Edition)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,98]
producer: Jean Michel Jarre
label: Sony Music - nationality: France

Track highlights: 1. "Ethnicolor I" - 2. "Diva" - 5. "Zoolookologie"

7th studio album by Jean-Michel Jarre released a year after his official studio release Musique pour Supermarché, which was a bit of a publicity stunt as only one copy of the album was pressed after which the master tapes were destroyed in order to make the copy unique and to fund charity purpose.
Zoolook continue Jarre's exploration of his progressive electronic into synthpop and with sound collages.
I recall rejecting the album as superficial and tedious synthesizer pop, but I have to admit that it has its interesting moments in exploring a sort of link between instrumental electronic and more popular music tradition guest appearances featuring jazz and funk bassist Marcus Miller, art rock fusion rock experimental guitarist Adrian Below and electronic minimalist Laurie Anderson.
The album has a more experimental touch than his previous more pop-founded album Les Chants Magnétiques from 1981, although, the track "Zoolookologie" fits more with his newly-discovered pop period.
I think, it's an interesting development of style but I also find that it a mixed bag pointing in too many directions.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 ]

David Sylvian & Holger Czukay "Plight & Premonition" (1988)

Plight & Premonition
release date: Mar. 1, 1988
format: digital
[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,65]
producer: David Sylvian, Holger Czukay
label: Venture / Virgin Records - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Plight (The Spiralling of Winter Ghosts)" - 2. "Premonition (Giant Empty Iron Vessel)"

1st collaboration album by David Sylvian & Holger Czukay. The album is Sylvian's first after his highly successful album Secrets of the Beehive (1987) but this has only little in common with that as it's an instrumental release consisting of two tracks: "Plight" (of more than 18 minutes) and "Premonition" (more than 16 minutes), both composed by Sylvian and Czukay. Holger Czukay is a German artist who played guitar and bass in the German (primarily 1970s) experimental, krautrock and psychedelic rock band Can. There's nothing of those styles involved in this except from experimental, and neither is there Sylvian's usual sophisti-pop, art pop nor jazz fusion to it, but it's more of an ambient album with the addition of sound collages, which isn't really my favourite. The release only demonstrates Sylvian's broad stylistic approach but also his reluctance to popular mainstream music. As his former band, Japan found itself on the verge of an international commercial breakthrough, the band split, and Sylvian took up his long and wide-embracing solo career. His 1984 and '87 solo albums only gained positive feedback from (almost) everyone in the music business but he sought other values than fame and glory with his music, which this basically serves to demonstrate. It's brave, it's honest to the bone, yes, but really not for the broader masses. Czukay is credited for playing organ, piano, shortwave radio, and for... "treatments", and Sylvian for playing electric guitar, keyboards, piano, vibraphone, and harmonium. Aside from the two main artists, also Can-drummer Jaki Liebezeit is credited for handling "infra sound", and Karl Lippegaus for "radio tuning".
I basically find this a difficult listen and don't enjoy the album that much, but with Sylvian there's always "something" to it, which almost never makes it a lesser release. After all, it might be brilliant for meditating, and my experiences with his music always has me letting a door open to it, 'cause I may find myself in a certain mood one day where his music makes sense upon returning to some of his more experimental music.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]