Jean Michel Jarre - Téo and Téa

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  • I thought Jean Michel Jarre was a name long gone, but not only has he ‘returned’ with a new album, but it seems that he was there all along, just nowhere where I was or would have wanted to be. Apart from all the goodwill work and a live album of hits (2004’s ‘Aero’) recorded at one of his occasional and epic concerts (in front of dwindling audience numbers no doubt), Téo and Téa represents his first album of new material since ‘Metamorphoses’ in 2000. The latter’s over-emotional trip hop/ambient clash almost seems like gold compared to where he has arrived now. Téo and Téa is nothing short of embarrassing. It bursts into life with some of the most galling Gaulish pop techno you could imagine – the kind of album you might find your pre-teenage daughter listening to. The single and title track, for example, sounds like the theme music to some cute after school adventure program or a platform game. It’s all high pitched and hysterical with short-lived changes for the attention deficient. Track three, ‘Beautiful Agony’, follows with bubblegum pink beats, squirts of synth jizz and ridiculous samples of a woman’s orgasmic moaning. Even the Happy Hooker is more listenable. ‘Touch to Remember’ is nothing of the sort, even though it slows things slow down a little, but there is nothing to merit it either musically or lyrically (the clichés are spoken by the computer simulated voice). ‘Partners in Crime 1 and 2’ are probably the only tracks you would contemplate listening again. Part one has a jazzy mood cut through with rustling rolls of break beats, while part two again utilises a trip hop palette with nice JMJ signature retro atmospherics underneath. From then on, the album heads back where it started (ending with another version of the title track) and there’s no saving it. Given that JMJ has had his moments of quality, and that he has been name-checked recently by some of the more interesting new producers, for example Redshape, you might have imagined he could have put something a bit better together than this.
  • Tracklist
      1 Fresh News 2 Teo & Tea 3 Beautiful Agony" 4 Touch To Remember 5 OK, Do It Fast 6 Partners In Crime 1 7 Partners In Crime 2 8 Chatterbox 9 In The Mood For You 10 Gossip 11 Vintage 12 Melancholic Rodeo 13 Teo & Tea 4:00 AM
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