St Germain

St. Germain is the pseudonym of producer and artist Ludovic Navarre, born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, in 1973. His influences include Bob Marley, Miles Davis and Kool and the Gang: a heterogeneous set of musical sources that makes his sound a distinctive blend of house music, jazz and French musical tradition.

He debuted in 1995 with "Boulevard" on Laurent Garnier's label, F Communications. It's an album built on new house sonorities held together by more traditional jazz and blues elements. It quickly became one of the cornerstones of the French house scene and of the so-called French Touch.

In 2000 St. Germain released his most successful album, "Tourist", on Blue Note Records. All the tracks are written, produced and mixed by St. Germain himself. For this record the French producer recruited six musicians to play over his syncopated grooves, moving toward an ideal fusion of jazz and electronics. "Rose Rouge", the album's opening track, which samples Marlena Shaw's extraordinary voice, was chosen by the Rolling Stones as the song to entertain the crowd at their concerts before taking the stage.

Thanks to the incredible success of "Tourist", which sold several million copies worldwide, St. Germain embarked on a tour lasting more than two years, after which he took a long break. It wasn't until 2015 that he returned to the world spotlight with the self-titled "St. Germain". The album is the product of a long journey the French artist took through Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, during which St. Germain came into contact with traditional African instruments such as the n'goni and the kora, which he decided to incorporate into the record's elegant, sophisticated sound with the help of local artists.

In 2021, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of "Tourist", Navarre enlisted veteran DJs such as JoVonn and Ron Trent to rework their favourite tracks from the iconic 2000 album, choosing for himself "So Flute", which he reworks in an amapiano style (a South African house music style). This new version of the record is titled "Tourist 20th Anniversary Travel Versions" and brings together all the musical influences born and developed in the first twenty years of the 2000s that St. Germain and his guests encountered while travelling the world.