(F Communications/Creative Vibes)

Easily regarded as one of the most influential figures currently operating in the European electronic scene (not least through his packed globe-traversing constant DJ touring schedule as well as the activities of his prolific and respected F Communications label), Laurent Garnier has certainly come a long way from his initial career path of working as a chef at the French embassy in London. One of the first European DJs to begin spinning Chicago house and Detroit techno at venues such as Manchester’s Hacienda in the late eighties, Garnier’s DJ sets went on to inspire the likes of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays to inject dance music rhythms into their swagger guitar rock, however Garnier soon shifted his focus back toward his native France (initially to launch his now-defunct Wake Up club and label, though he continues to reside there to this day).

While Garnier’s first two artist albums, 1995’s ‘Shot In The Dark’ and 1997’s ‘30’ were predominantly comprised of the signature Chicago-influenced jacking house featured in his DJ sets (witness seminal acid moment ‘Crispy Bacon’), his third full-length, 2000’s ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ showed him moving towards less club-friendly territory, with dark ambient-tinged tracks such as ‘Downfall’ included alongside house stormers such as ‘Sound Of The Big Babu.’ It’s a trajectory that certainly doesn’t appear to be altered with the arrival of ‘The Cloud Making Machine’, Garnier’s fourth artist album; indeed this is easily Garnier’s least dance-oriented album yet, with downtempo beats, mutant blues and dubby influences taking the place of snares and buildups.

Apparently based around the factory that sits directly across from his house in France (and the surrounding story that he would tell visiting children that it was a ‘cloud making machine’ rather than an emitter of pollution), ‘The Cloud Making Machine’ certainly immediately seems to have all of the portents that scream ‘concept album’; witness the brief introductory background story on the back of the case, as well as the intricate and vaguely prog rock-influenced foldout sleeve. In reality though, although there’s a definite stylistic flow that connects the tracks included here, if there’s an overarching plotline / story going on here, I must confess that I have yet to make it out.

Opening track ‘The Cloud Making Machine Pt.1’ hums open with sinister throbbing ambience and echoes, Sangoma Everett’s stretched and digitally-manipulated MC vocals sliding back and forth through the electronics and providing a brief spoken intro, before soft-focus ghostly synth pads float in around sputtering glitchy textures, while an acrobatic jazzy Moog solo (courtesy of Bugge Wesseltoft) darts and buzzes through the foglike sounds. It’s certainly a low-key and contemplative beginning, and one that might have some listeners scrambling to check that they’ve actually got a Laurent Garnier CD in the stereo. ‘9.01-9.06’ ventures into ominous skittering downtempo beats and dark brooding synths that call to mind Massive Attack’s recent ‘100th Window’, sinister-sounding keyboards and bass pulses sliding alongside stray clicks and whirs, while ‘Barbiturik Blues’ reintroduces the keyboard talents of Bugge Wesseltoft, who lays down a fantastically stoned-sounding blues melody over some subtle pulsing bass, but sadly it’s potent atmosphere is undermined slightly by the monotonous and jarring beats placed behind these inspired elements.

‘Huis Clos’ fares far better in the atmospheric stakes, with a contemplative minimal piano that evokes associations with cinematic imagery winding its way around the delicate feathery stringed tones of an Oud (and sounding very similar to a flamenco guitar), courtesy of Dhafer Youssef, who also adds some spine-chilling Middle Eastern wails that ring out over a vast beatless backdrop of distant strings, before ‘Act 1 Minotaure Ex.’ ventures down into brooding downtempo synths, slow crunching beats and bursts of static pulsing alongside a looped sample of breathing and chamber-music styled strings; sadly despite these promising beginnings, it merely circles around for its five minutes rather than really ending up anywhere in particular.

By contrast, ‘First Reaction (V2)’ is easily one of this disc’s absolute standout moments, with Sangoma Everett’s gritty first-person spoken tale of violence on the streets during the antiwar demonstration vividly conveying the fractured sense of panic and mass confusion over drum and bass-tinged rhythms and ringing soul-funk clavinet keyboards, the entire track accelerating into overdrive around Everett’s outraged exhortations as Phillipe Nadaud’s (of ‘Man With The Red Face’ fame) soaring soprano sax solo lifts things straight into the stratosphere. ‘Controlling The House Pt.2’ represents this album’s one concession to dancefloor-oriented beats, with an ambient intro giving way to chilled house rhythms and funk-influenced bass pads, dubbed-out bongo percussion rolls and vocal snatches sliding over the rhythms while spooky keyboards curve through the ether, while garage-punk styled track ’(I Wanna Be) Waiting For My Plane’ is perhaps one experiment that should have stayed behind closed doors at Laboratoire Garnier, with collaborator Scan X’s generic monochrome punk riffs quickly leaning towards grating; particularly when Garnier’s distorted gutbucket vocals kick in (a factor not helped by the throwaway lyrics on offer).

‘Jeux D’Enfants’ scatters and dubs out layers of samples of children playing over a vast cinematic backdrop of strings and skittering IDM-tinged beats that contort and twist whilst slowing gathering momentum around flanging analogue synths and bursts of distortion, before ‘The Cloud Making Machine Pt. 2’ brings this album to a close, glitchy buzzes and ebbing strings resolving themselves into focus around Sangoma Everett’s digitally-treated spoken vocals all too briefly, before proceedings fade to a close around sinister grinding textures and what sounds like a final echoing implosion.

‘The Cloud Making Machine’ is certainly an album that will confound listeners expecting to hear the side of Laurent Garnier that comes to the fore during his storming DJ sets; indeed this album shows Garnier indulging the more oblique, contemplative side of his personality, and one that’s increasingly been shifting towards the foreground in his later work, such as ‘Unreasonable Behaviour.’ However, while ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ certainly took some ‘listening-oriented’ directions amongst its tracklisting, it still contained obvious standout club 12”s such as ‘Greed’ and ‘Red Face’, something that definitely differentiates it from this most recent album. With the exception of but one track here, Garnier has focused on presenting his more emotional, cinematic and experimental side, and for the most part it works. It’s just that the presence of one or two uninspired inclusions as well as the obtrusive garage-punk moment serve mainly to disrupt the sense of deep atmosphere Garnier is clearly trying to conjure here, leaving what could have been a great album merely OK. A mixed bag.

Check out http://www.laurentgarnier.com and http://www.fcom.fr.