Equinoxe

Equinoxe was an album released by Jean-Michel Jarre in 1978. I was 13. I have no recollection how I came by that album – at the time I was heavily influenced by my peers yet nobody had this album nor knew of this mysterious, foreign artist.

Nor was it my genre – electronic, instrumental – a far cry from the pop and heavy rock that filled my music collection at that time.

But come by it I did, and I quickly became utterly fixated by it. Even the album cover had me hooked. I didn’t understand anything of it, I didn’t pick out a concept, it was just the whole package that fired something inside of me.

I played this album to death in the late 70s but lost touch with it at some point in the 80s. I never bought or listened to any other JMJ music, that was it, it was there, it was utterly mesmerising, then it was gone.

Fast forward to 2022 and I come across this album on Apple Music, I download it (complete with theatre going binoculared aliens graphic) and give it a listen. And within seconds I am transported back to 1978. I knew every note on every track. Emotions were stirred that I’m sure are the same emotions I experienced when I heard the same notes back in ‘78.

44 years have passed and yet it’s like it was yesterday. Utterly compelling, beautiful, emotional. That music can do that is testament to just how important music is for us. I can think of nothing else that could stir up such memories, such emotion, from such depths, over such a large period of time, as music can.

Wherever you are Jean-Michel, thank you from me and from my earlier self.