Para One - Passion '2012

Tracks list

Para One is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, a DJ, producer and filmmaker who has been
working out of southern Paris since the citys mid-90s heyday. Initially a doyen
of the indie hip-hop scene, his sound has become more splintered and diffuse,
taking in a raft of styles which he breaks up and repackages in his upbeat, nail
bomb productions. 

After a rather grand opening fanfare, like a synth-borne liner proceeding slowly
down the slipway, Wake Me Up and Every Little Thing set the tone of his new
album Passion—brisk, silvery, synthetic soul coming at you in a shower of
micro-beats that recall every production technique of the last two decades.
Vibrations + Poisoned Apples Interlude is a segmented piece, commencing with a
field recording of what sounds like a typically ill-tempered Parisian traffic
jam, before the title is chanted over a cleansed and rinsed Burial backbeat, the
scene then shifting to include skewed hip-hop beats that bring back hazy
memories of MC Solaar. 
 
When The Night follows, another highly polished slab of old school neo-funk, the
sparks flying upward as an agonised soul vocal flies its face in a
micro-blizzard of nuts, bolts and shards of IDM, techno and recycled disco
samples. Lean On Me, the first single from the album, featuring vocals by Teki
Latex, takes you on a similar ride, a series of impossible 2-step twists and
turns that hark all the way back to the early 80s. 

Theres none of the dark side about Passion. Love Ave is dappled and pretty, a
genuine waft of vitamin D, while You is a neat homage to Daft Punk (remixed by
Para One in the past), with its nicely twisted neon plastic tubing and
strangulated vocoders. The Talking Drums marks a slight shift of mood, with its
slightly stern injunctions to submit to the lure of the rhythm, while closer
Empire ends the album on a similarly grandiose note to its beginning, its
luxurious cascades of synth faintly recalling the solemnity of Art Of Noise. But
overall Passion is an angst-free experience, finely wrought with a view to
banishing the black and the blues. 

Tracklist:
1 01. Para One - Ice Cold (01:47)
1 02. Para One - Wake Me Up (03:17)
1 03. Para One - Every Little Thing (feat. Irfane and Teki Latex) (04:09)
1 04. Para One - Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude) (05:31)
1 05. Para One - When The Night (04:18)
1 06. Para One - Sigmund (03:32)
1 07. Para One - Love Ave (02:46)
1 08. Para One - You (03:57)
1 09. Para One - Albatros (04:20)
1 10. Para One - Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex) (04:30)
1 11. Para One - The Talking Drums (04:12)
1 12. Para One - Empire (03:26)

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