Laurent Garnier

Electro Shocks and Excess Luggage

Paris 

30/10/2003 - 

Laurent Garnier is enjoying a bumper autumn season both on and off the record. Besides Excess Luggage, a set of 5 CD mixes released on F.Com, the prolific DJ, producer and co-founder of the F.Com label has just brought out Electrochoc, a book about France's electro revolution, written in collaboration with journalist David Brun-Lambert.

An integral part of France's electro scene from the very beginning, Laurent Garnier has become an international figurehead for the Gallic techno movement. Garnier was one of the first French DJs to feature on the flyers of the world's leading clubs. And over the past fifteen years the electro mixmaster has earned a cult following on international dancefloors. Fuelled by the same passion that fired his early days, Garnier continues to enjoy a successful career, managing his star status with touching modesty.

Radio Garnier

Laurent Garnier was never a man to go in for DJ pseudonyms. Garnier never had a name to mark him out from the crowd or a famous parent or networked contact to give him a helping hand. He was a mixmaster determined to make it on the strength of his talent alone. Garnier found his vocation at the age of 14, discovering the world of radio. Not the radio adolescents lie back and listen to in the comfort of their bedrooms, but the radio you make yourself, cobbling your programmes together late at night at an age when you're still too young to mix in nightclubs. Garnier earned his spurs in the days of independent radio – which he would doubtless have referred to as "radio anarchy."

Garnier saw radio as the perfect medium to get his music across to the people, his mission being to pump out the widest possible musical diversity, the maximum amount of styles. Lolo – as he became known to his circle of intimates – earned a reputation for eclecticism early in his career, his consummate mixing skills allowing him to slip dub, techno, reggae, soul and hip hop onto his decks with the art of a "curling" master spinning an unexpected loop. After assuring regular spots on stations as diverse as Radio Nova, Maxximum, Fun Radio and FG, Garnier set up his own radio station, Pedro Broadcasting Basement (PBB), last year. As its name "broadcasting basement" suggests, PBB retains something of the anarchic spirit of Garnier's debuts, being broadcast on the Internet rather than the nation's mainstream frequencies.

Electronic with no limits

Besides masterminding an assault via the Internet with PBB, Garnier has been busy developing his career on the international club scene. The talented mixmaster, who has always refused to hide behind any kind of clever-clogs alias, made his mark at the start of the acid house explosion, spinning a seminal mix at the Hacienda club in Manchester. Garnier, whom the specialist music press have named world's best DJ not once but several times, has earned star status over the past ten years mixing sets at the world's cutting-edge clubs and music festivals. He has also enjoyed long-term residencies at the Rex Club (in Paris) and the late An-Fer (in Dijon).

Respected by the founding fathers of the techno scene in Detroit (with whom he has maintained close links), Garnier is equally revered by the young generation of DJs and producers he has assembled on F Com (the label he set up with Eric Morand in April '94). Once again, diversity has been Garnier's watchword. F Com is based on the founding principle of "Electronic with no limits" and brings established stars such as Jay Alansky (aka The Reminiscent Drive), Jori Hulkonen and Frédéric Galliano together with hot new signings including Del Dongo, Les Clones and Vista le Vie.

On and Off The Record

F Com also provides a mouthpiece for Garnier's own acclaimed EPs and albums which include Shot In The Dark in '94, 30 (which earned Garnier the first ever dance award at the "Victoires de la Musique") in '97 and Unreasonable Behaviour released in 2000 (which has sold 250,000 copies worldwide). Now, after mixing compilations for other labels such as Studio !K7, V-Form, Mixmag and React, Garnier has brought out five mixes recorded or broadcast between May '98 and May 2002. These have been released on F Com under the witty title Excess Luggage.

The first three mixes, created at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona, in Detroit and on Garnier's own radio station PPB, are billed as a 'boxed set.' But the last two mixes in the series (a straight-through-till-midday mix at the Rex Club to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Garnier's residency there and another specially mixed for the BBC) are only available from the 'virtual boutique' on http://www.fcomshop.com/. Garnier claims this is a ruse to boost sales of the boxed set which distributors may have hesitated to buy at the 5-set price. But knowing Garnier's avant-garde nature this is also a means of testing the possibilities of Internet sales.

Meanwhile, Garnier also appears in book stores this month with Electrochoc, a trendy tome published by Flammarion and written in collaboration with his journalist friend, David Brun-Lambert. Part autobiography, part first-hand account of the techno explosion, Electrochoc takes a behind-the-scenes look at the DJ world with slices of night-life pasted back to back in a novelistic style. But make no mistake about it, there is nothing fictional about the story. According to the authors of Electrochoc, "Everything in the book is drawn from real life." And there is certainly nothing exaggerated or over-glamorised in this true-to-life account which includes photos of Garnier yawning between sets. Garnier tells an international DJ's life exactly as it is with the simple modesty of a man who has never taken any name but his own.

Squaaly

Translation : Julie  Street