‘They contain every sound in the world’: Jean-Michel Jarre has written a history of electronic music through its machines
The book opens in 1913 with the futurist manifesto ‘The Art of Noises’.
Jean-Michel Jarre has announced his first book — ‘Machines: A History of Electronic Music’. It is an illustrated history of electronic sound told through the machines that produced it.
The musician’s official site sets out the details.
From Russolo to the ARP 2500
The starting point is not arbitrary. Luigi Russolo’s ‘The Art of Noises’ is a 1913 letter to the futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella in which the painter argued that the human ear had grown used to the speed, energy and din of the industrial city, and that music therefore needed different instruments. He backed the words with deeds: between the 1910s and the 1930s he built 27 varieties of intonarumori noise machines — howlers, cracklers, hummers. All of them were purely acoustic, with no electronics at all.
The story opens in 1913 with The Art of Noises, the manifesto by Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo. From there Jarre traces the genre’s European roots — Surrealism, the Bauhaus and, later, the radio pioneers. Detailed descriptions of more than eighty instruments, from the iconic ARP 2500 to bespoke one-off creations, chart how electronic sound shifted.
“This book is a journey through these machines: those I acquired, those I tamed, those I imagined, and those that shaped my musical language.”
He then describes what it looks like from inside the studio.
“When I step into the studio, they are there, lurking in the shadows, blinking silently. They contain every sound in the world. And I, like a gold prospector, am obsessed with extracting a few nuggets from them. My personal El Dorado.”
Contributors sharing their own recollections include Pete Townshend of The Who, Armin van Buuren, synthpop pioneer Gary Numan and New Order’s Gillian Gilbert, with more names still to be announced.
Thames & Hudson publishes the book: 8 October in the UK and 17 November in the US, with editions in various local languages also planned.
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