St. Germain

Bio

St. Germain is the pseudonym of producer and artist Ludovic Navarre, born in Sain-Fermain-en-Laye, France, in 1973. He includes in his influences Bob Marley, Miles Davis, and Kool and the Gang which make his sound a unique mix of house music, jazz, and traditional French music.

He debuted in 1995 with Boulevard with Laurent Garnier’s label, F Communication. it was an album made of new house sounds tied together by traditional jazz and blues which became one of the pillars of the French house scene.

in 2000 he published his greatest success, Tourist, with Blue Note Records for which the tracks were written, produced, and mixed by St. Germain himself. For this record, the French producer recruited six musicians to play on his syncopated and AllMusic defined it as «an excellent step toward the perfect mix of jazz and electronic». “Rose Rouge”, the first track of the album which sampled the extraordinary voice of Marlena Shaw, was chosen by The Rolling Stones as their pre-show tune.

Thanks to the incredible success of Tourist, St. Germain embarked on a two-year tour at the end of which the artist took a break from recording, declaring to The Independent: «I had to take a break from music. I realized that I didn’t want to something familiar to Tourist».

It was only in 2015 that he came back under the spotlight with the eponymous St. Germain. The album was the product of a long journey through Nigeria, Ghana, and Mali during which St. Germain came into contact with traditional African instruments, like the n’goni and the kora, which he decided to incorporate into the elegant and sophisticated sound of the records thanks to local musicians.

In 2021 for the 26th anniversary of Tourist he selected iconic DJs like JoVonn and Ron Trent to re-arrange their favorite tracks from the album, choosing “So Flute” for himself which he revisits in amapian key (a style of house music from South Africa). This new version of the record was titled Tourist 20th Anniversary Travel Versions and encompassed every musical influence born and developed in the first twenty years of the 2000s that St. Germain and his guests crossed while traveling the world playing music.

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