515 Presents Laurent Garnier - 16/3/10

515 tripod

POD + 515 Presents
Laurent Garnier
SUPPORT: LRB
Tues 16th march @ Tripod
Advance tickets €20
Advance Tickets from usual outlets. Phone/internet bookings subject to
extra service charges.
www.ticketmaster.ie /24hr Hotline 0818 719 300
More info www.pod.ie

Laurent Garnier Biog
April 2003, Laurent Garnier was playing the Music Box, a mythical
Manchester nightclub, packed with a capacity crowd of 600 people. He
served up a rare, eclectic, and passionate DJ set that night, lining
up classic rave anthems from the nineties and cutting edge
electronica, vintage hip-hop and techno gems from Detroit, disco hymns
and reggae classics. Suddenly, Garnier cut the music off. A lone voice
rang out criticising the war in Iraq. The second Gulf War was already
under way; Blair’s government had dragged England into a war that the
people didn’t want. A clamour began and burst into a scream when
military drum rolls boomed out. It was “War” by Edwin Starr. At this
moment, Manchester went crazy. I saw t-shirts flying through the air,
gangsters dancing like lunatics, girls twisting their bodies
outrageously and guys literally hanging out of the ceiling. This was
not a club anymore, this was not even a DJ set, this was now a pagan
temple in which everything was allowed; eccentric behaviour, loss of
control, blissful smiles and improbable gestures. I remember looking
at Laurent plunged in his record boxes looking for a last record,
hesitating nervously between Farley Jack Master Funk “Love Can’t Turn
You Around” and Marshall Jefferson “Move Your Body”. He chose his last
record. It sounded like a riot was going to start when the record
ended with a spluttering hiss.
That night in Manchester is my clearest memory of Laurent Garnier’s
art: generous, urgent and capable of miracles.
However, if like me, you have been following this artist for quite a
while, you already know how diverse he really is, and how the term
“one of the best DJs in the world” is an expression that does not do
the man justice. It has to be said again and again that here is a man
who has a one in a million fighting spirit, and who has been fighting
for over fifteen years to get great music to the public. Garnier has
always avoided theories and preferred action; he doesn’t like needless
repetition or empty compromises and less still wasting time.



Since his third album, Unreasonable Behaviour, and the subsequent
world tour, Laurent has definitely not been wasting time. There have
been a series of legendary concerts, whether it was replacing Guns N’
Roses at the last minute in the Torhout-Werchter festival in Belgium
or playing in Vietnam (!). After a year as Radio Nova’s music
programmer, Garnier set up PBB (www.pedrobroadcast.com), his first own
web radio, conceived as a radical response to French radio’s
conservative approach to music. This outlet allows him to share
treasures from his record collection.

PBB, which doesn’t care about styles, crosses King Tubby with the Sex
Pistols, links Underground Resistance to Alain Bashung or Karen Young.
Shortly after, F.U. FM was also set up. The little brother of PBB, a
pirate radio station, F.U. FM illegally broadcast its programmes
across Ibiza during the summer of 2003. Nowadays, PBB is completed by
a weekly show “It is what it is” on several European radios.
In the book Electrochoc, we both told the story of techno music over
the past fifteen years. The story was told through Laurent’s career.
Published by Flammarion, the book has been very successful in France
(over fifteen thousand copies sold). It has been translated into
German, Russian, Spanish and Japanese (just what is taking the English
speaking world so long?).
The soundtrack was missing to this book so Laurent brought out Excess
Luggage at the same time, a 5 cd package with mixes from Sonar,
Detroit, the BBC, PBB and the Rex in Paris. He also signed a cinematic
mix using film archives from the Albert Kahn foundation, a
philanthropic banker who financed expeditions in the early twentieth
century to the four corners of the world in order to collect “archives
for the planet”. Garnier wrote original music for several very diverse
short films, for example, a film about homeless people or a cartoon.
Remixes and 12“ vinyles are constantly added to Laurent’s discography
and all the while he travels across the world as a DJ. He still plays
his monthly residency gig in the Rex club in Paris. The very same
place where the Music, Expect the Unexpected Tour was launched in
September 2004, a European tour with Jeff Mills.
Will the man ever stop? No. And why should he? And remember that what
has been mentioned here is just the visible part of what he does.
Amongst his less obvious talents, Laurent has the gift of bringing
interesting people together and getting the best from them.
After Unreasonable Behaviour came out, Laurent spent a lot of time at
concerts checking out other musical styles. He started up beautiful
friendships with musicians from different scenes. Amongst them, the
Norwegian Bugge Wesseltoft, a marvellous jazz pianist who joined
forces with Garnier on stage at Sonar or the Montreux Jazz festival.
The Cloud Making Machine. his last studio album released in 2004
completed the diversity of Laurent’s explorations. A cinematic album,
a palette of contradicting emotions: chaos and poetry, beautiful
mornings and morning after blues, crazy laughs and quiet
contemplation, deep experience and raw emotion.
With this imaginary soundtrack, Laurent did start a collaboration with
the Albert Kahn Fondation in Paris for a series of unforgettable
“Cinemix” in France and Japan. After this successful experience,
Laurent Garnier develops in 2006 a new series of Cinemix for the
Louvre museum in Paris. He did select electronic musicians (including
himself) to create a live soundtrack on original movies from the early
20th century. Once again a massive success acclaimed by the critics.
Over the last years Laurent did continue touring both as DJ and with
his band for live concerts. In the same time he did compose and
produce a lot of music for contemporary choreographers as Pietragalla
or Preljocaj as well as music for films and exhibitions. His long
discography includes now some DJmix compilations, a Retrospective of
his work on F Communications imprint and a live album.
In 2008, the release of “Back to my Roots” on the German imprint
Innervisions hit everyone by surprise and invaded the playlists of
most of DJs during the summer.
In 2009, Laurent Garnier presents “Tales of a Kleptomaniac” his brand
new album. Him and the band will hit the road again from the spring
onwards.

Jello

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