St-Germain, de près

>> A "French-Touch house" builder returns on a jazzy Blue Note

by CHRIS YURKIW

Ludovic Navarre uses the multi-evocative name of St-Germain, and today he's a Frenchman in Sydney. No, he's no shot-putter getting an early feel for the field over fellow Olympians, although the 30 year old might well have dreamed of competing in Australia as the sailor and windsurfer he once was--if windsurfing were an Olympic sport, and if an accident hadn't pushed him in front of a computer where he began making music.

No, St-Germain is in Australia on the proverbial promotional tour to talk up his new album, and you get the feeling that his record company must've dangled the chance to visit semi-exotic locales in front of him just to get the taciturn Navarre out of his studio, let alone the Paris suburbs. Then again, Ludo must be pretty excited (on the inside) to have recorded his latest, Tourist, for the vaunted jazz label Blue Note, considering that he claims his best instrument is the PC mouse, and that he almost quit the mug's game of music in the wake of his previous album, 1995's blueprint for latter-day French house music, Boulevard.

"It's true that I said that," says the latest count of St-Germain about his threat. "At the time in France it was a period of fairly hard 'n' fast techno and even trance, and I just found that stuff so tiresome. I decided that I was just going to have fun with St-Germain and house--do my own thing--and I never thought that it would work commercially."

A funny sentiment for a guy whose last album helped open the floodgates for the punchy, disco-fied and quite commercially successful brand of house that the French like to call, in good English, French Touch.

"It's just because I was one of the first of the French to get recognized, with Boulevard. I think that album brought things to life a bit in France, and what happened after Boulevard got called 'French Touch.' But that didn't happen right away. It took a couple of years--with the arrival of Daft Punk and others--and I don't really feel a part of it."

Tourist, for its part, is a cool and sophisticated meld of St-Germain's house tip and a serious band of backing jazz players--certainly worthy of the Blue Note catalogue and containing just one sample from their vaults. Navarre might not be presaging trends like he used to, but he's certainly part of the rebirth of the jazz vibe in dance music (check all the neo-Brazilian stuff kicking around, or all the Afrobeat), and also the rapprochement of electronic studioheads and trad "live" musicians.

"We were just trying to understand each other," says Navarre, of the summit. "I tried to bring them up to speed on house music and other new musics and the machines involved--not by explaining it, but more by trying things out with them. It was like a marriage, and it took a lot to make it work."

With the New Deal at the Spectrum on Friday, Sept 1, 9pm, $24.50