French DJ Laurent Garnier Recording a New Album, Touring

Touring the United States over the past week, French DJ and producer Laurent Garnier caught up with Rolling Stone in an interview. Now doing a series of dates as LBS, Garner, with Stephane “Scan X” and Benjamin Rippert, had only stepped onto U.S. shores a handful of times over the past 10 years. Why the long absence? He told the magazine: “[U.S. authorities] were making our life hell to come and get a visa, really. You couldn’t even access the embassy, you had to Fed Ex your passport to the embassy and then at one point the Fed Ex van got stolen and got burned, so I lost my passport. I have so many crazy stories trying to get visas and stuff. […] Now things are much easier – it’s still hard, but much easier than what it was seven or eight years ago.”

During his LBS tour, Garnier previewed some new music in Los Angeles last weekend. In describing the new sounds, he said: “One track is gonna be called 'Jacques In The Box' because I can’t tell you the label I’m releasing it on because it’s gonna be a big surprise. And the other side is called 'Our Future' and basically the lyrics are about [how] our future is possible, and our future is possible because a lot of people are saying this is gonna be the end of the nation."

Some tracks may still be upbeat. He explained: "With the economy at the moment the banks are in a really, really bad state, and it’s getting pretty scary what’s happening in Europe at the moment. I just wanted to do a track to say even though we are in a bad time, try to hang on because usually days are after getting better.’”

After finishing dates in Japan, Garnier plans to return to the studio to record a full-length album, likely to hit stores in early 2013, and an LBS single over the summer.