Zoolook

Zoolook
Studio album by Jean Michel Jarre
Released	1984
Recorded	1982–1984
Genre	Electronica synthpop world music ambient
Length	37:58
Label	Disques Dreyfus
Producer	Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre chronology
Music for Supermarkets (1983) Zoolook (1984) Rendez-Vous (1986)
Singles from Zoolook
"Zoolook" Released: 30 November 1984 "Zoolookologie" Released: 1985

Zoolook is the fourth overall mainstream studio album by Jean Michel Jarre, and released on the Disques Dreyfus label in 1984. It makes extensive use of digital recording techniques and sampling. Much of the music is built up from singing and speech in 25 different languages, along with synthesizers (such as the Fairlight CMI), as well as more traditional instruments. Much of the tone of the album appears to be influenced by elements of musique concrète and by his time as a student of Pierre Schaeffer.

Parts of the album, like the tracks "Blah Blah Café" and the second half of the track "Diva", were reworkings of material that had already appeared as sections of the album Music for Supermarkets, released the previous year. The track "Moon Machine" was recorded for inclusion on Zoolook^[1] but did not appear on the final release; it later appeared, first on a flexidisc included with Keyboard Magazine (March 1986 issue),^[2] the 12-inch single of the Special Remix of "Fourth Rendez-Vous" (1986), and the much later Images compilation album (1991).

The voices heard on this album were based on recordings of speech and singing in numerous languages: Aboriginal, Afghan, Arabic, Balinese, Buhndi, Chinese, Dutch (Ethnicolor II - 3:15), English, Eskimo, French, German, Hungarian, Indian, Japanese, Malagasy, Malayan, Pygmy, Polish, Quechua, Russian, Sioux, Spanish, Swedish, Tibetan and Turkish.^[3]

The album spawned two singles: the title track and "Zoolookologie". Both were released in remixed forms as both 7" and 12" singles, the latter format including extended remixes by François Kevorkian. A further extended remix version of "Zoolook", produced by Razormaid!, has also been released.

After the initial album release, subsequent ones for Polydor and Dreyfus included these remixed 7" versions as the canonical album tracks (see track listings below). However, when Jarre's catalogue was remastered and re-released by Sony's Epic label in the mid-1990s, the original versions were once again reinstated.

Zoolook is one of the first compact discs labeled as DDD: digitally recorded, mixed and mastered.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[4]
NME	unfavourable[5]

At the time of its release NME said, "Strangely simplistic, this LP is like a union between Scary Monsters and Super Creeps and Kraftwerk on speed".^[5] However, in a retrospective review, Allmusic described the album as "interesting throughout".^[4]

Track listing

First edition - original tracklist (1984)

Second edition (1985)

The 1985 Polydor/Disques Dreyfus issues contain remixes of "Zoolook" (by René Ameline) and "Zoolookologie" (by François Kevorkian and Ron St. Germain), and reverse the positions of these two tracks in the running order. The original tracklisting was re-instated for the Epic/Disques Dreyfus 1997 remasters.

Third edition (1997 remaster)

Fourth edition (30th anniversary, 2014 remaster)^[6]

Personnel

• Jean Michel Jarre – keyboards, Fairlight CMI
• Laurie Anderson – vocals
• Adrian Belew – guitars, effects
• Yogi Horton – drums
• Marcus Miller – bass guitar
• Frederick Rousseau – additional keyboards
• Ira Siegel – additional guitars
• David Lord – mixing engineer

Equipment

• Linn LM-1
• Linn LinnDrum
• Simmons SDS-V
• Eminent 310U
• Garfield Electronics Doctor Click
• E-mu Emulator
• Fairlight CMI-II
• ARP 2600
• EMS Synthi AKS
• Moog 55
• Oberheim OB-Xa
• Sequential Circuits Prophet-5
• Yamaha DX7
• EMS Vocoder 1000

References

External links

• Zoolook at Discogs
• Zoolook at JarreUK