PROHBITION "Side By Side"
and "Boucle" unreleased songs
CD album "Ten Years Of Prohibited Records. Un anniversaire!"
Prohibited Records 2006
purchase at the SHOP


PROHBITION CD/LP album "14 Ups and Downs"
Prohibited Records - 1998
purchase at the SHOP

PROHBITION
CD EP 5FollowTheTowncrier
Prohibited Records - 1997
purchase at the SHOP


PROHIBITION
CD/LP album "Towncrier"
Prohibited Records - 1996
purchase at the SHOP


PROHIBITION
CD/LP album "Cobweb-Day"
Prohibited Records - 1995
purchase at the SHOP

PROHIBITION
CD album "Nobodinside"
Prohibited Records/Distorsion - 1994


SP : "Split Cornershop / Prohibition"
Bruit Distordu - 1995


PROHIBITION
CD album "Turtle"
Distorsion - 1993

Nicolas LAUREAU Guitar, Vocals, Sitar Fabrice LAUREAU Bass Ludovic MORILLON Drums Quentin ROLLET Saxophone, Organ

Nicolas and Fabrice Laureau grew up in between the former USSR, Germany, USA, and France - a fact which influenced their diverse passion for music. Prohibition formed after the two brothers met Ludovic Morillon in 1989 while attending the same French University. The band immediately became a priority over the University, and in it's development, saxophonist Quentin Rollet was integrated into the group in 1992.

Soon after, the French label Distorsion gave the band their first two releases, in 1993 and 94. In 1994, the band decided to fully embrace the D.I.Y. way of life, and Prohibited Records was conceived to release their third album, "Cobweb-day".

Three years later, Rollet also created his own Avant-Garde Jazz label, Rectangle, with French guitarist Noël Akchoté. The cultural dynamism of Paris has been the source of Prohibition's work. Their fourth album, "Towncrier", and the 5 song CD, "#5 Follow theTowncrier", are thematically based around perceptions of Paris. The group's last album, "14 Ups and Downs" was recorded in April '98, with Peter Deimel at Black Box Studio (France), and released during the end of '98 all over Europe and in the US. Four films/videos (ranging from narrative to experimental) were shot for this album by the French film collective Formicoleo.

In September/October 1998 the band toured the US playing shows with Blonde Redhead, The Black Heart Procession and David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol,...). After their European tour of 1999, the band decided to take a break to work on other musical projects, and to allow Nicolas and Fabrice to focus on running the label.

Their music has been described as newrock based on the mixing of musical fields and Parisian cultural interplay.

Prohibition has played more than 400 shows (from clubs to festivals) all over Europe and the U.S. and has shared stages with Fugazi, Blonde Redhead, David Grubbs, The Ex, Dominique A, U.S. Maple, Noir Desir, To Rococo Rot, Tarwater, Couch, Victims Family, Les Thugs, Condense and many others (including most of the other Prohibited Records bands).

"When I hear the word 'Prohibition' by itself, I think first of the Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's, how it is referred to simply by our government's inability to suppress decadence. In fact, there's an interesting correlation between that period -which forced normal people underground into speak-easies and produced a blossoming of jazz culture - and the current state of independent music."
(Keach Hagey USA, 1997)

"Parisian Anglophone quartet Prohibition have the smack of Morphine about them, but with more varied instrumentation. There are also echoes of the down'n'dirty side of Back Door. The style is more fractured than either, though. Rhytms stutter, riffs stumble, melodic lines loll across terse, telegraphic lyrics, textures glower darkly as they are slashed by obsreperous shards of powerchording. These 14 tracks add up to 47 accomplished minutes of intense songs mingled with insistent instrumentals, and the programming is nicely judged, consistently building the tension and density without reaching saturation point."
(THE WIRE UK, 1998)