Mmmmmm... Jazz! Nice! (Tourist - St. Germain)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Tourist - St. Germain
Date:	14/09/01 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sounds great!

Disadvantages: as background music

After a rather lengthy day spent largely in various pubs in Bath, from 10am in the morning, watching the first British and Irish Lions test in Australia, I eventually found myself in what I was reliably informed to be the only bar open later than 11pm that wasn’t a club by my friend, and host for the weekend, Andrew.

It was a fairly quiet affair, it couldn’t have held any more than about thirty people, the drinks selection was limited at best and I can’t even remember the name of it, but seeing as this is a music review, that’s pretty irrelevant anyway.

Anyway, some music was playing, and it was lively, and certainly got the old foot tapping away merrily. Upon voicing my approval of the music to my friend, he informed me that it was “Tourist” by “St. Germain”, that he owned it (the album, that is, not the pub unfortunately), and would * ahem * give me a copy.

I didn’t get a chance to listen to it until I got home, but my impression of it from the pub was that it was a fairly up-tempo Jazz album by a quite groovy band.

Upon closer inspection however, it appeared I was only partly correct. Yes, the majority of the album was very Jazz-like, but it wasn’t a band playing, but rather a series of loops and samples with some instruments being played alongside.

Not that this is a bad thing, I think the whole album sounds quite refreshing and the best way I can describe the concept is if you’re aware of how Moby took some old Southern Blues music and slave songs, and used pieces of them alongside his own, modern compositions, then French DJ Ludovic Navarre (St. Germain is basically a one man operation) does something similar here with “Tourist” except the music is all his own.

While the whole album is very jazz orientated, there are times when you notice other types of music creeping into the songs – on “Latin Note” you get a L
atin style beat, the first track “Rose Rouge” is what I would consider to be a fairly straightforward Jazz number, albeit with a vocal sample repeated through it while “Montego Bay Spleen” has an Afro-Caribbean feel to it. There are more examples of this on the album, but it’s probably best if you listen to the tracks yourself.

Navarre, along with musicians Edouard Labor, Alex Destrez and Pascal Ohse (Flute & saxophone, keyboards and trumpet respectively) manage to create a sound that is fairly unique, combining the music types mentioned above with such modern genres as Acid Jazz, and for the most part, works exceedingly well.

But now, having listened to it a fair few times over the past few months, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really an album that you put on and sit and listen intently to, but it’s more of an album you put on in the background if you are doing something else, like writing on Dooyoo, cooking in the kitchen, or entertaining guests. At just under an hour long, with nine tracks, it’s perfect mood music for chilling out with; you just have to get the volume right. You’ve got to make it loud enough so that you can hear it, but not loud enough that you have no choice but to listen to it, and you’ll probably be well pleased with the album. Chances are, your guests will half-hear it, like it and buy it themselves, only to find out that they only play it in the background…

Rather like certain Acid Jazz bands, or perhaps Jamiroquai, it’s debatable whether you would want to own more than one album by this artist (I’ve only heard one, but if St. Germain release another album that sounds like this, I can’t see the point in buying it).

Overall, recommended if you don’t already own a St. Germain album – think carefully if you already do.

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