Jean-Michel Jarre: Electronica UK Tour

A tour of the UK gets under way today for the legendary Jean-Michel Jarre, probably one of the best known French artists both commercially and critically outside France.

He's inspired generations of musicians over his career, as his two recent Electronica collaborative albums show. The collections also showed that there's a huge audience for Jarre who perhaps weren't familiar with his work, but who had grown up listening to contemporary electronic artists who themselves had looked to Jarre for inspiration.

He is also one of the artists who inspired the creation of this blog, and one of my first experiences of French music many decades ago.

His Elecronica tour is first proper UK tour since 2010, and it sees arena shows across the country. Perhaps smaller than some of the shows he's played in the past, but its always going to be tough to top the world record for attendence at your shows. I doubt we'll ever see 2.5m in one place again for a gig like there was at his show at La Defense. Never mind over a million for his shows at Houston, Paris in '95 and at Place de la Concorde in 1979.

Jarre of course played in the UK over the summer at the Blue Dot Festival at Jodrell Bank, an appropriately forward-looking science flavoured festival.

The UK dates are just part of his tour, with 38 shows in 22 different countries scheduled.

Dates in the UK are Cardiff tonight, Brighton, London, Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow on October 14, with a show in Dublin on October 10.

Beyond the tour Jarrre's confrmed his next project is a third volume of his Oxygene collection.

Hw said earlier this month: "When I was recording Electronica, two years ago, I did a piece of music (today Oxygene 19) that made me think about what Oxygene could be if I was composing it today."

Oxygene 3 is released on December 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of the original landmark release.

Jean-Michel Jarre: Electronica World Tour

Details have finally emerged of a forthcoming tour from Jean-Michel Jarre following closely behind the second volume of his Electronica collaboration albums.

He had already confirmed two festival dates and suggested that more shows were on their way, today's announcement sees shows across Europe from October, preceded by festival shows in June and July.

 One fascinating prospect is his only UK festival appearance, which will be a show at Jodrell Bank in the UK, where he headlines the three-day long Bluedot festival in the shadow of a massive radio telescope.

Alongside other events in the 'festival of discovery' there will be appearances by artists including Underworld, Mercury Rev and Public Service Broadcasting.

The tour proper begins in Cardiff in Wales on October 4, with dates in the UK, Scotland and Ireland. He then takes in a massive list of European countries, with shows in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

There are then a run of gigs in France, with Lyon, Dijon, Clermont Ferrand, Nantes and the final date in Paris on December 31.

It's likely that there will be more dates in 2017, as there are no shows outside Europe listed so far. I'd be very surprised if he doesn't take his show across the Atlantic or elsewhere.

Jarre's new album, the second volume of his Electronica collaborations entitles Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise is released on May 6. This volume features work with Primal Scream, Jeff Mills, Sebastien Tellier, Rone and the Pet Shop Boys amongst others.

Ahead of the album's release, the track What You Want, a collaboration with Peaches, is now available to download. He's also got a limited vinyl release of the track Exit coming out as a Record Store Day exclusive.

Tickets for his UK dates - his first shows in the country since 2010  - go on sale on Friday.

Mondkopf: Hadès

An album that got my attention today is Hadès, the new collection from Mondkopf.

The album's available to stream in its entirity on Mondkopf's Bandcamp 

It certainly merits your time. It's an experimental work, but one that is at times very beautiful in a terrifying way.

It's the fourth album by the French producer, bringing an experimental doom styling to dark electronica.

The album is available to steam in full and is also available as a CD or on vinyl, although in an edition of only 500 copies.

Mondkopf plays in Paris at La Gaite Lyrique on Feb 22, and at the Gibus on March 14 and La Machine on April 20.

Gesaffelstein: Hate or Glory

In the pre-holidays and end of the year business I neglected to give a mention to the new video by Gesaffelstein, for the track
Hate or Glory.

The track comes from his debut album Aleph, which was realeased at the end of October last year.

The album, by the artist known to friends and family as Mike Lévy, was rated as one of the best dance albums of 2013 by US-based Spin magazine.

Meanwhile, his work on Kanye West's Yeezus alum raised his profile even higher, the album - one of the most anticipated of 2013 - going to number one in the US billboard chart on its release, also reaching number one in the UK and in 29 other countries.

The video should help establish the reputation of the the golden boy of French electronica a as a significant artist in his own right.

He's playing live at a sold-out show the Olympia in Paris on January 39 before undertaking gig elsewhere in France and a show in London on February 14.

Meanwhile, he has been added to the bill of this summer's Vielles Charrues festival in Brttany.