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Movement Detroit 2018 Artist Spotlight: Laurent Garnier

April 17, 2018 By Brian Schultz

When people talk about some of the greats in dance music, you think of names like Carl Cox, Frankie Knuckles, Daft Punk, Richie Hawtin and so on. A name that belongs at the top of that list, and has been bringing us tune after tune for longer than a lot of us have been alive, is Laurent Garnier. The French DJ, producer, radio host, label owner, and record-crate digger has been going at it since 1984, making him only 18 when he started. His presence on the 2018 Movement lineup has us beyond excited since he hasn’t made an appearance on a Movement stage since 2001.

Garnier has been spinning and filling dance floors for over 34 years, all the while staying relevant, and sticking to his own style and sound, albeit, that includes most sounds in dance music today. Garnier is one of the true pioneers in the dance music scene, having witnessed and been a part of the acid house movement in Manchester in 1987, he played at multiple venues under the alias DJ Pedro, spinning Chicago house and Detroit techno. By the 90s, he was travelling and spinning all around Europe.

He added producing to his repertoire around this same time and also formed his record label F Communications. Not only was he creating his own music and starting a record label, he was also playing records on the radio, becoming a vital part of multiple stations and bringing his eclectic and rare sounds as a radio-tastemaker for 18 years. He enjoyed it so much, he created his own web radio station in 2003 which plays non-stop, day and night, 24/7 across the globe. And as if that isn’t enough, he hosts “It Is What It Is” which originally broadcast through four different radio stations in Europe, but is now played through WorldWideFM. In all of that time, he’s released a total of six albums with his first Shot in the Dark in 1994, and his sixth in 2015, La Home Box. All have received critical acclaim and are well revered across the dance music landscape.

His music and taste are so well revered in fact, he’s composed musical scores for cinema, theatre, ballet, television, and more. Garnier has very successfully brought his love, passion, and image of music to life, again and again, whether it be from nightclub, festival, television or theatre, he has left a very legendary mark on all of them. We’ve gathered some of our favorites and highly loved tracks and sets of his below, be sure to give them a listen and come bust a move to his eclectic stylings on Sunday of Movement this year, for the first time in 17 years. (Not counting, of course, his live hybrid performance under L.B.S., he did with Benjamin Rippert, and Scan X at Movement 2011.)

This Boiler Room set from 2015 at Dekmantel in Amsterdam takes you on quite the dance music journey and has racked up almost 4 million views. Garnier is also dancing harder than half the crowd, which is probably our favorite thing about him.

The live video above is one of his biggest and most played tracks ever, which came out in 1997. “Crispy Bacon” can still catch a dance floor on fire, and we still have it in rotation to this day.

This track is also one of our favorites, off his latest album La Home Box from 2015. What can we say, the strings on top of the percussion does it for us.

After some light digging, we were able to find Garnier’s 2.5 hour set from DEMF(Movement) in 2001. Enjoy!