Interview with St Germain for the Australian

V1 - AUSE01Z31MA THE AUSTRALIAN, FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 ARTS theaustralian.com.au/arts 15 Mali on MAN RAY TRUST Man Ray’s Glass Tears (Les Larmes), part of the collection Elton John reveals keen his mind eye for photography JACK MALVERN Man Ray, Picabia show in 2008. “Many photography curators Elton John became fascinated have been to see his work over with photography when he was the years because he has a very looking for something to distract large collection including works him during his recovery from from 1900 to today,” she says. drug addiction. The singer, who does not take “I went from complete photographs himself, says he and darkness to brilliant sunshine,” David Furnish, his husband, he said of the moment in 1991 regard the exhibition as a great when he bought his first vintage honour. photograph, a year after rehab. “The modernist era in About 7000 pictures later he photography is one of the key St Germain has made his is sharing his passion with the moments within the medium comeback with a career- public with an exhibition at Tate and collecting work from this defining album Modern devoted to modernist period has brought me great joy KEVIN DAVIES prints, including Man Ray’s over the last 25 years,” he says in Glass Tears and Andre Kertesz’s a statement. “Each of these Underwater Swimmer. photographs serves as marries those syncopated beats Bridgewater) were recorded sep- what I’d done, that he found it re- after he walked into an indepen- Although John is known for inspiration for me in my life; they St Germain explains why he had to and vocal samples with the tra- arately. Anything deemed unex- ally interesting. I was thinking of dent record shop in Brussels and, lavish parties and extravagance line the walls of my homes and I ditional music of Mali in West Af- ceptional was discarded; the inviting him to play on the world emboldened by a DJ who had — he once spent £293,000 consider them precious gems. take a break from doing his music rica, a country long hailed for its album took six years to make. tour” — special guests included walked in before him and played ($557,000) on flowers in less “We are thrilled to be part of fecund musicality. Popular Mali- “At first I tried getting every- American jazz pianist Herbie “this unbearable stuff”, gave a cas- than two years — he is also this collaboration with Tate an rock outfit Songhoy Blues also one together in the studio but they Hancock and Jamaican guitarist sette of his demos to the guy be- known for having one of the Modern and hope that the JANE CORNWELL is touring Australia this month, were all looking at me in a strange Ernest Ranglin — “when he fell ill, hind the counter. Signings with most important photographic exhibition audience experiences featuring on the WOMADelaide way,” the notoriously finicky Na- which was very sad.” small labels followed. collections in the world. as much joy in seeing the works There had been nothing for 15 Ludovic Navarre, St Germain’s bill alongside St Germain and his varre says with a smile. “We need- Like his two previous albums, “The French rave scene was so Shoair Mavlian, curator of the as I have had in finding them.” years. Then, last October, plaster quiet alter-ego, when we meet in a line-up of musicians from West ed to get to know each other first.” St Germain’s new record is dance tiny that I needed to find people to show entitled The Radical Eye: Tate will not discuss the value casts of a man’s face — smiling, swanky hideaway hotel behind a Africa, Brazil and elsewhere. music, not world music. Gigs at ve- share the music with. I worked Modernist Photography from the of the collection, but works by jowly, eyes gently closed — began gate on a hill in Montmartre. “But Mali wasn’t his first choice. A nues including the Troxy in Lon- very hard, all by myself, without Sir Elton John Collection, says it Ray have fetched up to turning up all over central Paris. the crowds were so strong, thank- large-scale concert in China with ‘I am never don and the Bataclan in Paris, even a sound engineer,” says the would be unthinkable for a £800,000 at auction. John, Painted in the colours of differ- ing us for coming so far.” drummer and Afrobeat co-creator satisfied. This is where he played on November 12, self-confessed loner, who has mainstream gallery to attempt whose fortune has been ent flags, most of these masks Then — nothing. While the Tony Allen had sent him, via You- the evening before last year’s hor- moved out to the Parisian suburbs an exhibition about modern estimated at £270 million, were dotted along the Left Bank, chill-out lounges of the world Tube, in the direction of Nigeria the trouble. I want rific massacre (“I was asked why I and plans, sooner rather than photography without consulting bought his first print — a black- peering blindly over the historic waited, patiently serving their (“house music and Afrobeat are to make music I didn’t cancel the tour but we have later, to live by the sea. “I DJed at him. and-white male nude by Horst P. streets and squares where their overpriced cocktails, St Germain very similar but I felt it had all been am proud of. But to go on”), saw Navarre standing raves mainly; my first gig was The exhibition, which opens Horst — at a photography subject grew up. Long-time fans went to ground like house music’s done before”). The internet took sometimes I even behind an altar-like mixing desk, playing to about 30 people in the in November, will be the first big festival in the south of France. soon cottoned on: St Germain, the own JD Salinger, and electronica him to Ghana, home of the rhyth- flanked by his seven-piece band middle of a forest.” display of John’s collection in Within 10 years he had 2500 French electronic pioneer, was doof-doofed on without him. It all mically complex highlife, which annoy myself’ and building and layering sounds Don’t call him a DJ, though: it Britain since a show at the Baltic images and has collected at a back. got too much, playing the same he deemed too tricky for non- until hands were in the air, minds makes his band members cross. in Gateshead in 2007, when similar rate since. Still, St Germain was never songs night after night after night, Ghanaians to interpret. LUDOVIC NAVARRE were in the zone and everybody “They consider me a musician. If I police seized a photograph of a A sale of 70 of his really a name to which you could he says now. He was hearing So he continued through was moving. “We always finish try telling them I am not, they get naked young girl by Nan Goldin. photographs brought put a face. His sound — a hypnotic mega-hits such as Rose Rouge, cyberspace to Mali, to the south- The album’s first single, Real strong,” he says. That trance as- angry with me. They feel that I The Crown Prosecution $US900,000 in 2004 at blend of electronic loops, percus- with its infectious horn riff and ern Wassoulou region with its im- Blues, throws a vocal sample from pect of music has long been vital to understand African music,” he Service later concluded that Christie’s in New York. He has sive grooves and ambient snatch- sample of jazz singer Marlena passioned nasal vocals and You Caused My Heart to Weep by Navarre, who taught himself com- says, glancing at the CD on the Klara and Edda Belly Dancing spoken previously about his wish es of jazz, soul and blues — was the Shaw singing “I want you to get to- pentatonic licks played on instru- American bluesman Lightnin’ puter-programming skills as a table between us, on its cover a (1998) was not an indecent to make his collection public, thing. gether”, in his sleep. ments such as the kora harp, bala- Hopkins into the electro stew. It’s teenager when he was bedridden photo of that cast of Navarre’s face image, but the incident although the fate of the He had emerged in the “I had to stop completely, take fon xylophone and the kamale a song that recalls the stirring yet for two years following a moped (the masks are a collaborative pro- prompted John to withdraw the collection appears to be mid-1990s with Boulevard, a a break from doing my own ngoni, a harp or lute. silky vibe conjured on St Ger- crash in Paris, aged 16, that left ject with the Parisian street artist remainder of the photographs undecided. game-changing debut that sold a music,” says Navarre, 47, in his “That was the trigger, that main’s glorious 2000 hit Sure him with a permanent limp. Gregos), covered by sand that from the gallery after nine days. “I’ve always wanted to leave million copies and placed him in calm and serious way. “I went and powerful bluesy sound,” he says. Thing, which used elements of a The only son of an interior de- leaves a gap in the shape of Africa. That image will not feature in my photography collection to the vanguard of the French did other things. I listened to a lot “I’m lucky Paris has a large Malian track written by John Lee Hooker signer and a housewife, Ludovic The next St Germain album the Tate show, which will consist the nation,” he said in 2010.

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