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 St Germain Tourist 1xCD, 2xLP Blue Note France |
It took Ludovic Navarre exactly 5 years to provide us with
the follow up full album of Boulevard. The Boulevard album
is by now widely recognized as an absolutely essential deep house album. The wait was long, we had to be satisfied
with a couple of remixes of the original tracks, but now the wait is over and the brand new album Tourist is here.
And what a surprise ! No longer on the quality F-Comm label, but on the legendary Blue Note label, already indicating
St Germain also went into the jazz direction. So, let's explore where Tourist is guiding us to. The opening track is also the first 12" release, "Rose Rouge". This is a rather monotone, nevertheless deep jazz houze outfit with a sparse vocal sample and subtle but deep bassline. Not really a track that will fill dancefloors but rather dreamy house for smokey rooms. "Montego bay spleen" is all about nu-jazz. Vaguely resembling a Conjoint sound, but varying and very smokey warm electronic jazz. "So flute" takes us back to the Boulevard sound and rythm putting heavy accent on the flute in an all jazzed out production. Taking over 8 minutes, and then you know it's big time chill moment ! Time for "Land of" going more into the acid jazz direction with an omnipresent trumpet on a slow paced beat. "Latin note" also features that typical St Germain basic bassline, this time embedded in latin bossa percussion and piano. "Sure thing" is an interesting composition of atmospheric chants and guitars, featuring the same voice as on Alabama Blues but overall slow paced. Perhaps, closest to the original St Germain sound is "Pont des arts" featuring that typical piano melody an a warm & deep bassline. Flutes again and breakbeats render "La goutte d'or" in a smokey exotic chill track. And finally, another jewel, "What do you think about .." is a slow deep acid jazz track. With Tourist, St Germain has yet another legendary album. This time overall a little more into jazz, acid jazz and nu jazz but ever still with a touch of his original deephouze sound. It doesn't feature a killer track such as "What's new" on Boulevard, but is even more a very coherent strong album. If you don't buy it immediately, we guarantee you'll buy it later eventually, just as so much music freaks are still buying his Boulevard album. ez apr/2000 |