Laurent Garnier

Unreasonable Behaviour is a pure, but not purist, techno album. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Laurent Garnier doesn't even try to imitate his favourite Detroit classics with the usual Roland gear and adolescent noodling. His latest album is a much more sophisticated project that conveys some of the ideas that you'd expect on a Derrick May or Carl Craig recording, sharing a strong affinity with the attitudes of Detroit artists, portraying a worldview through the language of underground dance music. The album opens up with "The Warning," a short interlude of dirgy synths, conga drums and sounds of liquid sprayed on the floor. It sounds like the aftermath of a warehouse party, where rhythms and grooves appear with a ghost-like presence. Things get grittier as bass lines fizzle and burn, indicating the possibility of a virus in Garnier's midi cables. The voice of the machine begins to decay into robotic nuances, but as the pulse keeps on, a string arrangement enters the mix and takes the tracks up to higher altitudes. The optimism continues to be felt in the up-tempo moods of "City Sphere", "Cycle d'Oppositions" and "The Man With The Red Face," where Garnier brings in live saxophones and bass against his shuffling sequence of rhythms. Like the rest of the disc, it's an strange balance of the spontaneity and restraint, making it one of the more justifiable instances of techno-jazz. Garnier doesn't make any such claims on this record and thus maintains the integrity of what may be the French DJ's most visionary work to date.