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LES JARDINIERS Cafeteria (5270972) Haute Couture Records 2000 13 Tracks. 62mins08secs. Buy this CD on line now

Cafeteria is the first album from French-Canadian trio Les Jardiniers. Although being based thousands of miles away from the French house scene, their sound is surprisingly similar, and this album is a rather successful mixture of disco, house and electro. Kicking off with the Air-esque La Niche, Cafeteria explores all sorts of genres, ranging from high speed disco wonders such as The Apartment, reminiscent of Etienne de Crecy’s Prix Choc, the groovy Deluxe or the definitive floor-filler Everybody’s Got It, to wacko-electro, on Pavillon 67, a sort of Kraftwerk-meet-Sunday-afternoon-ballroom festivity, or the Daft-Punk influenced Stongman. Les Jardiniers don’t take their music, or themselves, too seriously. Even the furious Kaitana, complete with girlies and lion (!), arguably the least interesting track of the lot, retains a certain element of fun. The boys apply all sorts of recipes to their dance music, testing, twisting and forging, just for the sake of it. The very tech-housey Funky Daktari, the modest Corn & Wheat or the laidback Bilbao are examples of just how diverse is their inspiration. However, despite this melting pot of influences, Les Jardiniers manage to keep a definite consistency all the way through, using vocoders or samples, musical salt and pepper, to spice up an already very tasty dish. And when it becomes all too mad, on the first of the two hidden tracks, they just reverse the tape… for a laugh! Martin Dumais, Sylvain Houde and Jean-François Charette, the guilty consciences behind this rather eclectico-funky record, the garden keepers in this silly discothèque, definitely put Montreal on the dance world map, and, as it seems, it is only too right!

TRACK LISTING 01 La Niche 08 Electro-Home 02 Pavillon 67 09 Corn & Wheat 03 The Apartment 10 Bilbao 04 Deluxe 11 Stereopole 05 Strongman 12 Everybody's Got It 06 Kaitana 13 Stop & Go 07 Funky Daktari

THE SURFER'S GUIDE TO LES JARDINIERS HAUTE COUTURE RECORDS Haute Couture Records is the home of Les Jardiniers, and seems to be purveyors of good dance music in Quebec.