Deepside Ludovic Navarre

b. France. A musician and producer who straddles the worlds of dance music and ambient in a similar way to his fellow countrymen Air, Dimitri From Paris, Etienne De Crécy and Kid Loco, Navarre has recorded under various pseudonyms including Modus Vivendi, Deepside, Hexagone, Soofle, LN’s, Deep Contest, DS and St. Germain. Some critics might argue that he led the way for the others to follow. Although Moby’s Play from 1999 may have been infinitely more successful in commercial and critical terms, it was Navarre who first experimented with blues and gospel samples combined with down-tempo dance beats on 1995’s Boulevard. For a long time a mainstay of Laurent Garnier’s FNAC and F Communications imprints, Navarre signed to the jazz label Blue Note Records for his May 2000 release, Tourist, which drew inspiration heavily from the modern jazz that made the label’s name. The album featured the Jamaican jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin as a guest artist and included live trumpet, saxophone, percussion and drums alongside sampling of artists such as Marlena Shaw, Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker. Brilliantly combined with Tourist’s predominantly jazz sensibility was the sounds of laid-back house, Latin grooves, dub and hip-hop.
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