OZONE by Sietse Bruggeling

This album is a work of celebration of Jean Michel Jarre’s classic album Oxygene. The 1976 album continues to inspire me which led me to making this album. I tried to learn from the master and having fun doing it.

I sort of took the vocabulary of the original and wrote a new piece with that. In a different time, different place and different equipment. I didn’t try to replicate it, but used its distinctive sound as a starting point for something new. However, there are some similarities in many ways, not only musically.

At the time Jean Michel Jarre had limited money, so he had to be creative with what he could get his hands on. He couldn’t make whatever he wanted, because the equipment wouldn’t allow it. Some say that it is for this reason that Oxygene has its unique sound or is for example sometimes considered a minimalistic album.

Fortunately, I have the same problem; limited money and limited equipment. I have a modest modular synthesizer and a small recorder. That’s it. And a computer to master it and upload it here, but I don’t use the computer for anything else than that. So no mixing for example.

In some cases, he had an advantage over me in equipment, and sometimes I had. Most modular synthesizers, like mine for example, are monophonic, so no chords can be played, only single notes. Jean Michel Jarre used a lot of chords. But, I have a digital sequencer he could only dream of at the time. At the same time, we had similar problems probably; analogue oscillators going out of tune, making a mistake and then have to start all over again etc.

So sit back and relax, enjoy. Thanks for listening!