Zoolook by Jean-Michel Jarre

Zoolook is the seventh studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre, released on the Disques Dreyfus label in 1984. It makes extensive use of digital recording techniques and sampling. Much of the music is built up from singing and speech in 25 different languages, along with synthesizers (such as the Fairlight CMI), as well as more traditional instruments. Parts of the album, like the tracks "Blah Blah Café" and the second half of the track "Diva", were reworkings of material that had already appeared as sections of the album Musique pour Supermarché, released the previous year. The track "Moon Machine" was recorded for inclusion on Zoolook but did not appear on the final release; it later appeared, first on a flexi disc included with Keyboard magazine (March 1986 issue), the 12-inch single of the Special Remix of "Fourth Rendez-Vous" (1986), and the much later Images compilation album (1991). The voices heard on this album were based on recordings of speech and singing in numerous languages: Aboriginal, Afghan, Arabic, Balinese, Buhndi, Chinese, Dutch, English, Eskimo, French, German, Hungarian, Indian, Japanese, Malagasy, Malayan, Pygmy, Polish, Quechua, Russian, Sioux, Spanish, Swedish, Tibetan and Turkish.The album spawned two singles: the title track and "Zoolookologie". Both were released in remixed forms as both 7" and 12" singles, the latter format including extended remixes by François Kevorkian. A further extended remix version of "Zoolook", produced by Razormaid!, has also been released. After the initial album release, subsequent ones for Polydor and Dreyfus in 1985 included these remixed 7" versions as the canonical album tracks (see track listings below). However, when Jarre's catalogue was remastered and re-released by Sony's Epic label in the mid-1990s, the original versions were once again reinstated. The track "Diva" is also slightly shorter on the second release.