Bass Odyssey

Laurent Garnier, who was known for his seamless, inspirational Detroit techno and Chicago house-inspired DJ sets since the late 80s, has in more recent years travelled an experimental path. The 2000 single ‘The Man With The Red Face’ hinted at his interest in jazz, a passion that he realised at festivals and clubs worldwide with a live band. Subsequently, he set up an internet radio station to present his vast record collection to the world, and made an ambitious if often bewildering concept album, 2004’s Cloud Making Machine.

For many of the outspoken Frenchman’s fans, weaned on his DJ sets, the noughties have been barren years, but Garnier assures us that’s all about to change.
“There will be a few singles beforehand, but the new album is due in April next year, and it’s a million miles away from the last one,” he explains. “The new record is very dancefloor-oriented, there’s a funk track, a drum ‘n’ bass track, some 4/4 tracks and even some blues – it’s very much influenced by black music and I think that people will be surprised by it.”
Garnier doesn’t agree that its predecessor was as conceptual as many of its detractors claim, and feels that it was the right move to make.
“I started making and playing dancefloor music, I got popular, so I felt that it was time to go deeper and get more experimental,” he proffers. “After Cloud Making Machine, I made music for two contemporary choreographers – one was for a dance school in Aix en Provence, near where I live, and the other was for a production about the Marquis de Sade, which is now touring internationally. I have always been curious and once you get recognised for one thing, it’s good to move forward: preaching to your own church can get very boring. I see techno producers who have been making the same music for the past 14 years – I’d get very bored if I repeated myself.”
For that reason, Garnier feels that now is the right time to return to the dancefloor. Inspired by the house and techno that’s emerged from Europe and particularly Germany over the past few years, as well as the free-for-all attitude of some of the continent’s clubs, he released his first single in three years on German DJ Dixon’s Innervisions label earlier this year.
“I was playing in the Panorama Bar in Berlin and when Dixon heard me play ‘Going Back To My Roots’ he said he wanted to sign it,” Laurent recalls. “I wasn’t so sure, but then I went home, thought about it, and recorded the B-side, ‘Panoramix’, and gave him both tracks. There aren’t that many places in the world like the Panorama, where you can play anything you want. It’s important for the scene to have such places, but they have always been there – look at Electric Chair in Manchester or Yellow in Tokyo, or even The End in London.”
Garnier also feels that technology is central to this revival of house and techno’s fortunes. Claiming that the software developers are the ‘true musicians nowadays’, he admits that the availability of cheap music-making software means there is more sub-standard music in circulation, but that hasn’t stopped him from embracing DJ technology.
“I still buy records, but I rip the vinyl to CDs,” he explains. “I spent nearly 20 years paying for excess airline baggage and getting my record bags lost: now I can have the equivalent of 25 boxes of records with me on CD when I DJ. I don’t think anyone would notice the difference in sound between vinyl and digital files in a club. Sure, I’m sad to leave vinyl behind, but for years in France we’ve heard these conservative voices telling us that computer music was not real music – we cannot defend music that’s so linked to technology and then not work with that technology.”
Despite this, Garnier still plans to promote his new album the old-fashioned way, with a full eight-piece band, and abhors the idea of a producer performing with a laptop.
“If it’s live, it has to be live – I hate laptop sets, it feels like you’re just watching someone checking their emails,” he laughs.
Garnier’s other big project is making a film version of his book about the techno scene, Electrochoc. He’s in the process of seeking a director and screenwriter, having secured the all-important funding. He says that the film is only loosely based on the book and is a work of fiction.
“It’s about a DJ, who’s in the same situation as me and something happens to him in his life – and how he deals with it. It’s not a film about techno, it’s about who the guy is and how music can change your life and yes, a lot of my life is in it.”
Does it have a happy ending?
“It should be out in 2011 or 2012, you can find out then!”