Review Summary: I want you to get together.
Over the course of this last calendar year, my foray into jazz music has brought me to some rather interesting places while the outside world stood still. From the fantastically catchy bop pianism of Ryo Fukui’s
Scenery to the wildly mind-bending live performances of Miles Davis circa 1975’s
Agharta and
Pangaea albums, it’s been a fascinating ride to say the least. Challenges to my preconceptions of music itself have relentlessly encouraged me to take things as they come, and expand on a penchant for appreciating pure expression in the form of sound. I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for accepting this challenging form of music and growing to absolutely adore it, I’m grateful for how it has involuntarily expanded my appreciation of the entire spectrum of genres and sub-genres, and I’m very grateful it has led me to discover the apparently legendary French producer known at St Germain.
Debuting in 1995 with the
Boulevard LP, the embers of creativity were patient to rekindle ablaze, with a lengthy five year gap between that timeless
dévoilement and the album in question: the venerable and doubtlessly influential
Tourist. It was probably a smart move on behalf of Ludovic Navarre, who drew his moniker from an enigmatic 18th century philosopher whose aliases included Comte de Saint Germain and flurry of other, equally bold titles. The heady blends of nu jazz, deep house, downtempo and dub that were so carefully perfected on his debut were surely a demanding undertaking, so one-upping that effort certainly warranted a half-decade of gestation. Nonetheless, fans during that era of infantile internet and misguided hope for a brighter new millennium must’ve been growing antsy in anticipation. Fortunately, the wait was well worth it. Released in 2000,
Tourist blindsided the electronic underground, popping up in DJ sets, cafés, art studios and lofts from Paris to Boulogne for years to come. It was an album whose prevalence, one can assume, helped foster Ludovic’s influence on the French music scene as a whole, and as legend has it, can still be heard echoing through the sidestreets of France to this day.
There’s no prerequisite fluff before getting to the heart of the matter regarding this album. The styles come through right away on opener “Rose Rouge”, and anyone with an inkling of familiarity with house music and/or jazz will quickly notice the chemistry between these two forces when under the sagely guidance St Germain. The carefree demeanor of French house music spearheads the whole affair, but the steadily swift swing of those high hats allude to a more sophisticated ancestry. Indeed, the lines between those endlessly walking saxophones, prodding piano licks and driving rhythms are anything but awkward. All is in its place, with purpose and soul, and that magical synergy simply never quits. “Montego Bay Spleen” takes on a more dub persona, downplaying the swing influences of
Tourist’s first seven minutes and instead opting for a spacious mix rife with soulful jazz guitar soloing and distant beachside riddims. It’s a perfect complement that rouses hope for a dynamic affair, and the following seven tunes don’t disappoint in that regard. “Land Of…” boasts a truly nostalgic organ riff before launching into one of the catchiest downtempo tunes in existence, and its impact on the album as a whole is buttressed by the spy-movie-goes-to-Spain vibes of “Latin Note” shortly thereafter. There’s so many moments on
Tourist that are simply, truly, and wholly arresting in every regard that it’s a futile task to pen even a fraction of them. It’s one of those albums that truly needs to be heard to be believed, and even at that, it’s true charm is only revealed after a few layers are peeled back. As a cherry-picked example, it’d be easy to miss out on just how awesome those artificially vibratto’d vocal samples in “Pont Des Arts” are, even if you did in fact notice them on the first go-around. Those acknowledged-but-not-yet-appreciated layers to
Tourist are icing to an already unparalleled cake of pure bliss, and certainly elevate the shelflife of this hour-long opus to Olympian heights, but it’s the straight-up picturesque marriage to jazz music and all the excitement that comes with it that truly launches Ludovic Navarre’s sophomore effort into a realm that an extraordinarily few number of electronic music albums inhabit.
“La Goutte D'Or” might retrace the dub leanings of songs prior with a touch of midnight mood lighting, but again, those pertinently relevant flickers of nu jazz howl in the distance even as a meandering flute draws on memories of youthful acid trips soundtracked by the likes of Shpongle and Ott. In short, there’s nothing quite like this classic longplayer. Sure, it might have the bones of a deep house album, but to call
Tourist a house album with nu jazz influence is somewhat of a disservice. If anything, the dynamism and nuance on display begets hailing this is as more of a nu jazz album with deep house influences, taking all the best of both and melting them into what could be fairly hailed as one of the greatest genre-defying albums of all time. There’s no two ways about it,
Tourist is a beast in a baret that confidently struts the hypnotic power of electronic beatcraft alongside the wildly entertaining stylings of unrestrained nu jazz (which in and of itself is a striking gumbo of forces), but it’s the flawless execution of it all that fills in the tough questions that lead to a perfect score. With nary a dull moment to be heard, a charisma fit for any time of day and a ceaseless dedication to detail, this early-millennium masterpiece is just as relevant today as it was twenty-one years ago. While I’m not sure
how St Germain made this thing, I’ll concede to simply not caring. I’m just glad he did it.
