St. Germain - Tourist

Smooth, downtempo grace flows through the veins of St. Germain, a.k.a. noted French composer-producer Ludovic Navarre. His record is a sensual flow of jazzy textures, Latin rhythms, and bass-ridden beats, hovering on the verge of techno, jazz, or experimental headphone music without tipping its hand too far in any direction. The result is irresistible: class with an edge. --Matthew Cooke


Techno and house music producer Ludovic Navarre is--along with Laurent Garnier, Air and DJ Cam--one of the biggest names in French electronic music of the past decade. His ability to imaginatively blend jazz elements with recent dance-music styles has been demonstrated before, but the seamless quality of this release is stunning. Compared to someone such as Amon Tobin, who obviously (although brilliantly) creates sampled collages, St Germain makes it pleasantly difficult to identify the boundary lines between "live" performance, programmed electronics, and sampled sound. Part of the credit must go to this album's musicians, including Pascal Ohsé, Eduoard Labor, Alexandre Destrez, and Idresse Diop (at least some of whom are francophone Africans making their mark in the post-colonialist European Afro-jazz scene). The CD's opening piece, "Rose Rouge," is centered on an edgy piano rhythm and a looped vocal fragment from jazz singer Marlena Shaw. The dub-inflected "Montego Bay Spleen" features Jamaican jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin, who offers a clean, warm, neo-Wes Montgomery style filtered through his years as a session musician-architect of ska and reggae. And Edouard Labor's raspy flute tone on "So Flute," its role as much rhythmic as melodic, adds a Latin flavor to the mix. "Sure Thing," another high point of the release, is built around a vocal and guitar sample from blues guitarist John Lee Hooker, borrowed from the soundtrack to Dennis Hopper's film The Hot Spot and noteworthy on its own as probably the only time Hooker, Miles Davis, and Taj Mahal ever played together. Navarre's skill in selecting musicians, finding sample sources, and assembling cool, streamlined grooves adds up to quite an accomplishment. --Bob Bannister

side one

1. Rose rouge
2. Montego Bay spleen

side two

1. So flute
2. La goutte d'or

side three

1. Sure thing
2. Pont des arts

side four

1. Latin note
2. Land of...
3. What You Think About...