Laurent Garnier - Unreasonable Live DVD

Unreasonable Live, filmed at the charming L'Elysee Montmarte in Laurent Granier's native Paris, illustrates exactly why the floppy haired Frenchman is so popular amongst today's techno cognoscenti. Based on the producer's adventurous Unreasonable Behaviour album (which fused his studio know-how with live instrumentation), this performance captures the hometown leg of a worldwide tour which went on for an impressive two years. Dance producers doing their thing "live" can often be horribly dull, involving banks of computers, columns of speakers, token visuals and artists... with a complete lack of stage presence/personality. Thankfully, Unreasonable Live is a little more flamboyant. Garnier himself isn't the most exuberant of showmen but he does seem to enjoy himself, shaking his rump, fisting the air and generally having a ball on stage. He is flanked by musicians Marc Chalosse (on keys) and Phillipe Nadaud (sax and EWI), who add visual interest along with some choreographed dancers, an impressive lights/visuals display and, of course, the audience. The fast-paced editing of the movie snaps between all of these, keeping neat time with the throbbing bass drum pounds, hypnotic snare rolls and smoothly undulating basslines. All of the Unreasonable Behaviour album--from the blistering breakbeat of "Greed" to the addictive pulse of "Downfall" and the ambient vibe of "Communications from the Lab"--is reproduced here, with added improvisations and a nice raw edge. On the DVD: Unreasonable Live on disc comes complete with endearing grammatical errors--"To enjoy this movie please follow these advices"--that impart a pleasant, light-hearted feel to the DVD, which is further enhanced by its colourful red and yellow display format and continued by an amusing sequence which urges the viewer to turn their mobile off, lock the door, relax their feet (cue image of stinky cheese), turn down the lights and be a good supporter. Once you're nicely settled and in the mood, you can then choose to watch any of the tracks on their own or simply press play and view the concert as a whole. Additional features come in the shape of three music videos for the singles "Sound of the Big Babou", "The Man with the Red Face" and "Greed", all of which, like the music, are imaginative, high quality and thoroughly entertaining. The picture is 4:3, the sound is in high quality stereo and at 50 minutes the whole thing doesn't drag on needlessly. --Paul Sullivan [show more]

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