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Laurent Garnier | Unreasonable Behaviour

LP, F Communications

Tekst: da volgaBabe

Publicatiedatum: 18 mei 2000

Wasn't it curious that Laurent Garnier, one of the planet's hottest DJs and producer of a string of hits ('Acid Eiffel' and 'Crispy Bacon' to name only two), the ambassador of techno and house for many years now, never seemed able to come up with an album that equalled his reputation? Now, two years after the rather disappointing '30', he's finally done it. 'Unreasonable Behaviour' is one of the best techno albums that ever grasped these much-plagued ears. In a time when producing a techno album is still much the equivalent of coming up with a concept, a few dancefloor hits and filling the gaps between those with some experimental tryouts that are likely to be forgotten with the last note (see Carl Craig's 'Innerzone Orchestra' effort on Talkin' Loud), Garnier makes a consistent album that is not only propped up with present and future hits, but also senses the pulse of time in a most admirable fashion, allowing techno, electro, deep house, and experimental sounds to cohabitate under the same roof.
The man kicks off with 'Dangerous Drive', which sounds much like its title, being a brooding, slowly climaxing groove which is influenced by Detroit and Kevin Saunderson's E-dancer productions. Saunderson also emerges in 'Le Groove de ta MËre', a perfect dancefloor exercise that contains a sample from the Motor City boy's long-forgotten 'Electronic Dance'. The dancefloor also rules on 'The Sound of the Big Babou', an Ibiza anthem that's so intense that it will blow the roof off of your house and with 'Smart Move', a moody, yet straight-forward piano track that shows the influence of his old mate Ludovic Navarre but would not figure badly on a label like Bob Sinclar's Yellow Productions either, with its jazzy organ and joyous Windy City feel. A shame that people who buy the CD will have to miss this one, though.
And then there's 'The Man with the Red Face', possibly the best track Garnier ever spawned and underway to becoming an effigy for what popular techno should do in the 21st century: make you feel good and wanting to party on a beach by sunset, with your only true love wrapped in your tanned arms. A truly well-earned hit that will become a standard and an example for the next techno and house generations, combining feeling and technology in a nine-minute sax-groove that continues to conquer the airwaves from Tokyo till Timbuktu.
But Garnier manages to do more than this. On 'Downfall and Greed' he manages to avoid the pitfalls of experimental techno and comes up with truly exciting electro with a message and beautifully crafted noise-ambient, while the somewhat softer and calmer 'City Sphere' marries the sounds of a Guidance-type jazzy house with a European feel for electronics.
'Unreasonable Behaviour' ends in beauty with 'Last Tributes from the 20th Century', that is - like his title implies - a parlando tribute to the triumvirate of cities where house and techno originated (for those not in the know: Detroit, Chicago, and New York) and teaches the new generation of techno-heads that it was not Surgeon or the Advent who invented and perfected the sound we today know as techno. "Cinq sur cinq", the Frenchmen would say, and the first really essential album of the new millennium.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/laurent-garnier/unreasonable-behaviour/535/
Meer Laurent Garnier op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/laurent-garnier