Born in 1966, February 1st. A former staffer at the embassy in London, Frenchman Laurent Garnier began DJing in Manchester during the late '80s and became by the following decade one of the best all-around DJs in the world, able to span classic deep house and Detroit techno, the harder side of acid/trance and surprisingly jazzy tracks as well. He added production work to his schedule in the early '90s, and recorded several brilliant LPs with a similar penchant for diversity.
One of the first Europeans to begin mixing American house music in Britain, Garnier was one of the prime cogs in the late-'80s club scene. His DJing at Manchester's legendary Haçienda club provided a major inspiration for the Stone Roses, The and Happy Mondays to begin adding house rhythms to rock music. Garnier shifted his attention back to France in the early '90s, running the Wake Up parties at the Rex club in Paris for three years and gradually moving into recording as well. For the FNAC Music Dance Division label, Garnier released "French Connection" and the "A Bout de Souffle EP"; after the label went under, though, he formed the F Communications label with Eric Morand (a friend who had also worked for FNAC Music Dance Division). He had amassed quite a discography by the mid-'90s, but his first LP "Shot In The Dark" wasn't launched until 1994. His second, "30", appeared in 1997, followed by the retrospective "Early Works" in 1998. After trotting the globe with multiple DJ appearances during the late '90s, Garnier returned to the production realm with "Unreasonable Behaviour", released in early 2000.
In 2002, he launched a web radio, Pedro Broadcast. Since then, he began to look back to his roots by producing several mixed compilations, and an another studio album in 2002, "The Cloud Making Machine", more jazz-oriented. Every year is a new occasion to come back with a new project or live show, appearing in festivals (Montreux, Eurockéennes...), The Rex Club in Paris, or for special performances with friends (Philippe Nadaud, Bugge Wesseltoft, or more occasionally Avril, Alexkid, Mathieu Chédid, Spleen (3)...). This period of intense live creation is materialized by his project album "Public Outburst" released in summer 2007. For his latest show and project, "Gnanmankoudji", he collaborates with Scan X and Philippe Nadaud.