DESERTED PALACE

"Deserted Palace" was Jarre's first solo output, released in 1972. It displays lots of experimentation and noodling and the overall result is pretty weird, very close to early avant-garde electronic. The songs rarely last over 2-3 minutes, all of them being varied and experimental, some of them are actually pretty good, though some of them also fail to pleasure me badly! The songs are not easy to like unless you are open mided to genres like Krautrock or early progressive electronic genres fan, cause this is completely different from later Jarre albums, such as Oxygene and Equinoxe. It's like The Residents meets some weird experimental 70's electronica. The song titles might give you another idea how this album sounds, considering their similarities with the title and the melody. Jarre uses only a few keyboards here; EMS synthesizer and the farfisa organ to create this weird music, but if you ask me, he should have added a couple of more different keyboards here to make this album more varied and perhaps a bit more interesting overall.

If you are interested, get it (if you can find it, the original vinyl is extremely hard to find), but don't expect too much. But if you liked "Les Granges Brulèes" (Jarre's second album, a movie soundtrack), you'll probably like this one too!

2 stars are the most I can give to this album. I would have rated it 3 if the production and some of the songwriting were improved further and if the works had better melodies. For fans!

"Deserted Palace" by Jean-Michel Jarre is a quite strange experience, in that I fully agree with previous reviewer. In contrast to Jarre's successful following albums, where long and spacy tones dominated, it's in "Deserted Palace" the opposite. Short "blipp- blopp" sounds. The tracks are a little bit avant-gardish, in a fun way, but also more basic than what was to come on "Oxygene". So, a quite funny album, but nothing to get too exited about either.

"Deserted Palace" is a rather unconventional piece of music. I wouldn't say that it is as daring as the "Kraftwerk" debut, but it holds some minimalism which at times reminds me of the German band ("Poltergeist Party").

This album is quite pioneering the electronic music in France. Of course, you shouldn't expect anything a la "Oxygen" but I have to say that except some very short pieces like the avant- garde "Exasperated Frog", "Iraqi Hitch Hiker" or "Bee Factory", this album deserves a listen.

I particularly like the Floydean "Bridge Of Promises" which indeed holds some promise about what's to come. My fave is the long (for this album) "Windswept Canyon". It is a combination of very melodic parts mixed with more experimental and complex ones. The highlight and a beautiful song. At times, it competes with some great German electronic bands (if you see who I mean).

This debut album is sometimes daunting, but for the time of recording (1972) it was innovative and totally not commercial. But this is partially due to J-M background of experimental artist / student. Needless to say that this work fully corresponds to the electronic prog genre.

This is an average album (five out of ten): at times very good, at times weak. Two stars.

Jean-Michel Jarre was never been that high praised among the Proggers, the only exception being Oxygen (1976).

I am not a big fan myself, but I listen pretty much everything related to Progressive Rock, so of course I tried this one too.

Usually I don't bash an album just for do it, and I don't review it as well. But this one is irresistible. I mean, this is so bad. It's almost impossible to understand.

Deserted Palace (1972) is the first solo effort by Jean-Michel Jarre, and being a keyboard/elextronics kind of guy maybe made it this bad. Too much nonsense experiments and jamming away.

From far one of the most horrible albums I've heard.

JEAN MICHEL JARRE was born and raised in Lyon, France and not only was classically trained to play piano but also spent most of his early years under the influences of his musical family (his grandfather was an oboe player and engineer) and also by his early exposure to the famous French street performers that sparked his interest in developing his own unique style of progressively inspired electronic music. In the early 70s JARRE was already gaining attention when he was noticed by Norbert Schmucki to contribute music for a ballet at the Palais Garnier in Paris. As one thing led to another in his musical progressions, he would score the opportunity to record his first album DESERTED PALACE.

This debut album was supposed to be recorded so that it could be used in various television programs, ads and film soundtracks. Basically an all purpose use for anything type of album's worth of material. The material on here is very much in the experimental electronic department but JARRE was taking a different approach even on this first album of his career all the way back in 1972 before his big break with 'Oxygène' four years later. Whereas other contemporary progressive electronic artists of the day were deriving their influence strictly from the Berlin school of psychedelic and trippy weirdness that was partly inspired by lysergic dissonance and otherworldly freak outs by the hands of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, JARRE was very much in touch with his inner pop star sensibilities and added a highly melodic underpinning to all of his musical edifices, much in the vein of Krautrocker Achim Reichel with his German equivalent 'Die Güne Reise,' however JARRE clearly has his classical influences well on board on DESERTED PALACE and the album comes off as an equal mix of classical inspired rhythms, melodies and ideas mixed with electronic embellishments, timbres and experiments all dressed up in a poppified easily digestible format.

Although this album is hardly a contender for the cream of the crop of JARRE's creative output, all of the elements that would be tweaked and fine-tuned for future use are all present here and this debut release and is an excellent insight into the more sophisticated sound that would come together a few short years later. The melodies are already here, the electronic experiments likewise and the pop sensibilities that often sound like classical tinged proto-synthpop are also on board as well. What IS lacking here is the totally refined weaving of all these styles into the irresistible and undeniably brilliant concoctions that would emerge on 'Oxyg'ne.' While not at that same level of coolness, i find all the tracks on DESERTED PALACE quite listenable and beautifully constructed. This indeed is a fine debut release and maybe not quite to the level of OMG essentialism but nevertheless is for sure a damn fine listen that won't disappoint. 3.5 rounded down