To many people Jean Michel Jarre is a legend, an innovator, a pioneer. To John ‘00’ Fleming and The Digital Blonde he is an inspiration and part of the reason they got into electronic music to begin with. To me he is the guy who made the bit of music at the end of Gallipoli when Mel Gibson is running around in the trenches. Thankfully I’m not the one remaking the tracks though as I don’t think i could come up with anything as good as this!

For this release the boys have taken a thirty year old electronic track and turned it into a pumping trance monster. It wasn’t easy too, they apparently spent two weeks just trying to recreate the sounds and get everything right. It was time well spent because the whole package sounds fantastic. The original is a tough driving tune in typical Fleming style but the Oxygene parts make it a lot more melodic and uplifting than usual. The dub mix is pretty similar but just a tad bit deeper and more restrained and there is a short radio version as well.

Along with the original there’s a fantastic bunch of remixes. Miika Kuisma and Anton Chernikov both turn out nice deep proggressive mixes while Astral Projection and Protoculture take care of the more psy-flavoured psyde of things without being too weird or out there. The stand out for me though is the Solarstone remix. OMG. OMG. OMG. Instead of just making a trancey remix with the melodies, they’ve put a lot of work into giving it a fantastic atmosphere and vibe to it, so it really does sound like a spacey, Jean Michell Jarre trance tune. It’s brilliant and probably the highlight of the lot for me. Definitely grab this if you are a trance fan, contender for release of the year for me!