Electronic Sound May 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 22

ALBUM REVIEWS

LAURENT
GARNIER

The Home Box

F COMMUNICATIONS
French legend returns to banish the
curse of jazz techno. World celebrates
All hail the renaissance of Laurent
Garnier. Beginning last year with a series
of EPs in homage to routes to and from
his home – the ‘A0490 EP’, an Air France
flight, for example, or the ‘A13 EP’, which
corresponds to the French Highway 13
– it culminates, gloriously, triumphantly,
here, in a box set featuring key tracks
from the 12s as well as new material, all
of it spread across four 12-inches and
a CD. The good news? It finds Garnier
on peak form, perhaps the best of a
glittering 20-plus year career. The bad?
‘The Home Box’ is limited to just 1,000
copies. Don’t sleep.

Choosing where to start presents
problems of its own, so we’ll go with
CD opener ‘Enchanté (UNER Club Gleam
Remix)’, a tremendous 10-minute epic
of immersive and glassy progressive
house. Next up, ‘LOL Cat’ comes on like
Vangelis grooving at Studio 54 and we’re
already deep in sit-up-and-take-notice
territory. But it gets better. Thanks to a
similar vocal line, ‘Beat Da Boxx’ – here
given the Marc Romboy mix treatment –

is reminiscent of 69’s techno classic ‘Jam
The Box’, and is the cue for Garnier to
shift his gaze to the Windy Motor cities,
where the majority of the album resides.

Highlight follows highlight. From ‘Boom’
to ‘Bang’ to ‘MILF’, Garnier’s command
of jacking house and chunky techno is
a potent reminder of his place among
non-US producers of the early 90s.
While David Holmes tilted towards soul
and movie soundtracks, and Andrew
Weatherall to dub and post-punk, Garnier
always had Detroit and Chicago in his
sights. His skill in bringing them together
reaped seminal techno in tracks like
‘Crispy Bacon’ and ‘Acid Eiffel’.
In 2000, however, when his
‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ album gave
us the ubiquitous ‘The Man With The
Red Face’, it also signalled the dreaded
jazz direction beloved of so many of his
contemporaries (Dave Angel, Ian O’Brien,
Russ Gabriel, Stacey Pullen). Yes, the
album was his commercial high point
and helped define an era in which no hip

young kiddie was seen without a copy of
Straight No Chaser under their arm, but
it also marked the point at which Garnier
began to lose his way. When 2009’s
‘Tales Of A Kleptomaniac’ appeared,
bogged down by a plethora of disparate
styles, it looked like the writing was on
the wall.

Which is why it’s so gratifying that
‘The Home Box’ finds him excelling at
what he does best – for the most part
crafting wondrous house and techno, and
elsewhere moving gracefully from the
harsh siren call of ‘The Rise And Fall Of
The Donkey Dog’ to smoother and more
downtempo cuts like ‘Psyche Delia’, and
even a couple of straight-up sex tracks.
Laurent Garnier’s back, back, back, and
the title of this set fits perfectly, not just
because of the travel theme that runs
throughout, but because for the first time
in, oh, at least a decade, you sense he
feels right at home.

ANDREW HOLMES