A mesmerising music experience

It’s no surprise that an app by electric music legend Jean-Michel Jarre pushes boundaries. Designed to generate ever-evolving and never-ending music, Jarre’s latest project EōN isn’t just an app, it’s a living creature.

The philosophy behind this ambitious project is “to touch the infinite”. EōN is in a constant state of evolution and the soundscape differs each time you launch the app. Everyone will have a unique and distinctive experience, one that is endless but also temporary. You can’t go back to it or listen to it again: it’s an ode to the present moment.

“The whole system is created by humans and the algorithm comes in like a sort of super conductor. It will continuously remix all the content produced over a year,” explains Jarre.

“Creating sounds that work together in terms of tempo, texture, timbre and tonality was a real puzzle – we had to invent a grammar.”

EōN is made up of thousands of sounds lasting from 10 seconds to three minutes, which encapsulate varied emotions. “I wanted to focus on other genres besides ambient or techno; I wanted to have a mix of voices, slightly tampered strings, the subtlety of minimal techno, and even pop,” Jarre says.

Jarre first had the idea of generative music in the late ’60s when he was a research student at the ORTF, a former French national broadcasting agency. At the time he was tinkering with magnetic loops and tape recorders to create “infinite music”.

About 50 years later, with the help of technology, the composer was finally able to bring his idea to life as an app. “Technology dictates styles, not the other way around. It was because the violin was invented that Vivaldi existed. It’s thanks to the invention of the synthesiser that I’m here,” explains the artist.

But EōN is not just a musical work of art. Above all, it’s an experience that merges sound and imagery. Collaborating closely with the French graphical researcher Alexis André, Jarre developed an electronic language made of octagonal, cylindrical and spiral shapes. Shuffling on your screen, they feel like a psychedelic puzzle – the textures become sharper as the sounds become more pronounced.

“Similar to the Big Bang, EōN is an abstract world made of particles. It is a creature that comes to life over time; elements are integrated in very mysterious ways, yet they’ll feel organic. It evolves little by little,” says Jarre.

EōN by Jean-Michel Jarre

Infinite musical creation

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