En attendant Cousteau (English title: Waiting for Cousteau) is the tenth studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre, released on Disques Dreyfus, licensed to Polydor. The title is a reference to the play Waiting for Godot.
Originally, Jarre intended to call it 'Cousteau sur la plage (Cousteau on the beach)', but it was changed at the last moment. A promotional tape contained this title.
The album was dedicated to Jacques-Yves Cousteau and was released on his 80th birthday 11 June 1990. AllMusic described the album as "groundbreaking stuff", due to its stylistic differences from his other albums. The album reached Number 14 in the UK charts.
En attendant Cousteau is divided into two distinct stylistic halves: the first three pieces titled "Calypso" and the title track, an ambient piece which was used in the soundtrack of a 1991 documentary entitled "Palawan: Le dernier refuge" by Cousteau and Jarre. However title track from documentary did not appear on En attendant Cousteau.
The title track was also played at Jarre's exposition Concert d'images in Paris, 1989. According to a Jarre fan-magazine, it was created via an app on an Atari Mega-ST,AMI (Algorithmic Musical Instrument) By Cadenza Software. However, likely the name should be ACT (Algorithmic Compositional Tool), which "generates random musical output, based on user-defined notes, which can be controlled in real time using a GEM interface or a MIDI source", as listed on https://www.ataritoday.com/extra/. on which Jarre programmed 16 starting notes. He apparently got the idea from the book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. He denied it in a later interview, claiming all notes are actually played by hand, noting however that the track includes some time-stretched samples mixed into the background.
Jarre performed the album for about 2.5 million people at the Paris La Défense concert on 14 july 1990, featuring The Amoco Renegades, a steel-drum band from Trinidad and Tobago.
Track listing CD edition
Vinyl and cassette edition
Personnel Personnel listed in album liner notes: Jean-Michel Jarre – keyboards The Amoco Renegades – steel drums Guy Delacroix – bass Christophe Deschamps – drums Michel Geiss – keyboards Dominique Perrier – keyboards
Charts Chart (1990) PeakpositionFinnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)Finnish charts:
|- 11Spanish Albums (AFYVE)37
Certifications and sales
!scope="row"|Worldwide | |1,550,000
Notes
References
External links Waiting for Cousteau at Discogs