Jean-Michel Jarre on the futuristic appeal of electronic music

Forty years ago, French electronic composer and producer Jean-Michel Jarre released his album, Oxygène. Twenty years ago, he followed that up with Oxygène 7-13. Last year, he returned with one last "sequel," as he calls it — Oxygène 3.

For Jarre, a sequel had been something in books, film and television, but he wanted to do the same in his music. "So, I took the same sounds and instruments and I put them to a different script," he explains. "This is like a season 3."

Having been making music for four decades now, Jarre says the appeal of electronic music was, and still is, its futuristic outlook. "When I started Oxygène, it was with this vision and hope of the future," he recalls. "I think we lost that in the 2000s, but I think it's coming back in movies and in books, like with Interstellar [...] electronic music is the soundtrack of what we're talking about." 

Jean-Michel Jarre is performing at Toronto's Sony Centre For the Performing Arts tonight. For more information, head over to the venue's website.

— Produced by Mitch Pollock