Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, aka Para One, has always been an hyperactive guy. He first started as no-nonsense hip-hop producer in the mid-nineties, making beats for undeground rap artists. His recording studio was actually his one-room apartment in Southern Paris, where MCs were coming on a daily basis, crammed around a mic, an MPC and a battered convertible.
At the turn of the century, he began producing his own instrumental tracks and soon got in touch with the TTC people, then at the core of the burgeoning French indie rap scene. This was the beginning of a new exploration in sound for him : from traditional rap, Para One switched to IDM and techno-infused beats, fizzing with 8-bits FX and deconstructed grooves.
After TTC's first LP Ceci n'est pas un disque, in 2002, for Ninja Tune's rap sublabel Big Dada, Para produced L'Atelier's (an indie rap supergroup) album for seminal Parisian label Institubes, with his boy Tacteel, whom with he also started a live electronic project named FuckALoop.
In 2003 came the massive " Beatdown EP ", and then TTC's 2nd album in 2004, Bâtards Sensibles, two records that definitely proved how rap attitude and electronic wizardry could be melt into one single sound - an idea many people didn't quite buy at the time. In 2005, Laubier graduated from the FEMIS film school, and found the time to start working on his first solo LP, the critically acclaimed Epiphanie, that came out in 2006 on Institubes.
Intense touring years followed, both as a DJ and live act, all over Europe, North America, Japan, alongside other Institubes artists such as Surkin and Bobmo. He played at Coachella twice, Pukkelpop, Calvi on the Rocks, Primaverra. Reknown for his heavy technical skills, he also became a hot remixer (Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, etc.) and a hot producer (Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda and now Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for his Femis friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, and directed his own film in 2010, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy. After the demise of Institubes in early 2011, he and his mates Bobmo and Surkin set up a new imprint called Marble, for which Para already produced or co-produced a dozen tracks. He simulteanously worked on his second album, called Passion, that'll be out in a few weeks.
This a new shift again in Para One's career : the album feels much warmer and confortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits, complete with vocals from Tekilatex, Irfane and Jaw.
The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable sexy touch : it's teeming with round-shaped sounds, wet textures and gentle aural strokes. The whole movement is mid-paced and light-headed, and it's clearly a home-listening, or even bed-listening, slow jam album. The tenderness often gets spaced up or angularized, though. The beats sometimes manage to sound both smooth and rough, easy and intricate, and ghosts of Para's rap training can be heard everywhere.There's also hints of 2-step, deep house, IDM and boogie funk, yet it's a singular, idiosyncratic record, made with an extremely cohesive approach.
It's an almost serene effort, and it's certainly generous and loving in the way it unfurls its numerous ideas. This is an album you get deep into, but there's nothing dramatic to it - it's just unadultered, voluptuous pleasure
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Ice Cold
2. Wake Me Up
3. Every Little Thing (feat Irfane and Teki Latex)
4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5. When the Night (feat. Jaw)
6. Sigmund
Side B :
1. Love Ave (feat. Additional vocals by Jaw)
2. You
3. Albatros
4. Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
5. The Talking Drums
6. Empire
More
At the turn of the century, he began producing his own instrumental tracks and soon got in touch with the TTC people, then at the core of the burgeoning French indie rap scene. This was the beginning of a new exploration in sound for him : from traditional rap, Para One switched to IDM and techno-infused beats, fizzing with 8-bits FX and deconstructed grooves.
After TTC's first LP Ceci n'est pas un disque, in 2002, for Ninja Tune's rap sublabel Big Dada, Para produced L'Atelier's (an indie rap supergroup) album for seminal Parisian label Institubes, with his boy Tacteel, whom with he also started a live electronic project named FuckALoop.
In 2003 came the massive " Beatdown EP ", and then TTC's 2nd album in 2004, Bâtards Sensibles, two records that definitely proved how rap attitude and electronic wizardry could be melt into one single sound - an idea many people didn't quite buy at the time. In 2005, Laubier graduated from the FEMIS film school, and found the time to start working on his first solo LP, the critically acclaimed Epiphanie, that came out in 2006 on Institubes.
Intense touring years followed, both as a DJ and live act, all over Europe, North America, Japan, alongside other Institubes artists such as Surkin and Bobmo. He played at Coachella twice, Pukkelpop, Calvi on the Rocks, Primaverra. Reknown for his heavy technical skills, he also became a hot remixer (Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, etc.) and a hot producer (Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda and now Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for his Femis friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, and directed his own film in 2010, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy. After the demise of Institubes in early 2011, he and his mates Bobmo and Surkin set up a new imprint called Marble, for which Para already produced or co-produced a dozen tracks. He simulteanously worked on his second album, called Passion, that'll be out in a few weeks.
This a new shift again in Para One's career : the album feels much warmer and confortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits, complete with vocals from Tekilatex, Irfane and Jaw.
The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable sexy touch : it's teeming with round-shaped sounds, wet textures and gentle aural strokes. The whole movement is mid-paced and light-headed, and it's clearly a home-listening, or even bed-listening, slow jam album. The tenderness often gets spaced up or angularized, though. The beats sometimes manage to sound both smooth and rough, easy and intricate, and ghosts of Para's rap training can be heard everywhere.There's also hints of 2-step, deep house, IDM and boogie funk, yet it's a singular, idiosyncratic record, made with an extremely cohesive approach.
It's an almost serene effort, and it's certainly generous and loving in the way it unfurls its numerous ideas. This is an album you get deep into, but there's nothing dramatic to it - it's just unadultered, voluptuous pleasure
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Ice Cold
2. Wake Me Up
3. Every Little Thing (feat Irfane and Teki Latex)
4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5. When the Night (feat. Jaw)
6. Sigmund
Side B :
1. Love Ave (feat. Additional vocals by Jaw)
2. You
3. Albatros
4. Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
5. The Talking Drums
6. Empire
More
More records from para one
1
Para One - A2. Shin Sekai 5:16
2
Para One - C1. Alpes 5:10
3
Para One - C2. Yret 5:46
Genre: Electronic, Soundtrack, Ambient, Minimalism
DLP: 180g vinyl, Heavy Sleeve, UV Spot Varnish, Sticker
Tracklisting DLP
A1. Vertigo 4:32
A2. Shin Sekai 5:16
A3. Virtual Satori 6:17
B1. Sundial 3:44
B2. Atlantique 4:56
B3. Fauna 4:03
C1. Alpes 5:10
C2. Yret 5:46
C3. Silicon Jungle 5:39
D1. Ars Nova 5:41
D2. Futatsu No Taiyo 4:28
Info
WRWTFWW Records is happy to announce the release of Para One’s new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace, available in half speed mastered 180g double lp housed in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish.
Machines of Loving Grace, the new album by Para One, whose real name is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier could be called fiction. It is an object freed from constraints, formats, genres, territories: the gospel of a new world. Six years after Club, eight years after Passion, his previous LP, this lover of electronic music, who has also been putting his sensitivity to the service of movies (soundtracks for Céline Sciamma in particular) opens with this record a new dimension in his artistic career. “I needed to break away from patterns and systematisms of formats, and take unexpected turns. To do so, I had first to allow myself to do so”.
Allow oneself and maybe above all confront oneself – with one’s childhood, with one’s childhood’s ghosts, and what fantasies, ideals, memories, and grey areas they harbor. He had to go back – without giving up on his position as an adult, as a full-fledged artist – to the sources of his imagination, to the moment when music was holding almost mystical power. And then revisit it to make something new out of it. Just like Sanity, Madness & the Family (the feature film directed by Para One that he just finished and of which it is a consubstantial part), Machines of Loving Grace has an investigation around a family secret and the father figure as its starting point. “When you go down the path – of a work, of a person, of the past – you never really find out what was. You find yourself,” explains Para One. For the musician/producer, this personal, identity quest doubles with a quest for sound. Machines of Loving Grace is both the story behind and the result of it.
After defining the structure of the album, Para One went exploring the sounds, and the figureheads that shaped his sensibility as a musician: soundtracks of Japanese anime watched hundreds of times; Indonesian drums and gamelan; the peculiar harmonies, on the verge of dissonance of Bulgarian Voices; Steve Reich’s minimal music; or Detroit techno music. Several trips, to Bali, Japan, and also Bulgaria, have thus fueled the album, clashing with and shaping the electronic architectures of Para One.
In Bali, he went deep into the jungle with the Suar Agung Group, who play jegog, a particular form of gamelan, to record the astounding « Silicon Jungle ». In Sofia, he met with the Mystère des voix Bulgares group. “I have long been fascinated by their peculiar, and voluntarily borderline off-key harmonies, between the East and the West. The text they sing is an invented language. The idea was really to create a traditional, cosmic song from another planet.” The choir illuminates « Shin Sekai », one of the most beautiful tracks in the album, that could be seen as a manifesto: like some emotional and cultural overlap, it blends percussions recorded with KODO on the island of Sado in Japan, violin played by Arthur Simonini, treated as if it were Arvo Pärt, and a very trance-like electronic arpeggio – which has become one of the signatures of Para One’s over the years.
It is also representative of the multiple weaving, between machine and human hand, acoustic and electronic textures, ritual practices and contemporary arrangements, which run through the record and make up its mystery, its oddness: the instruments used (guitar, marimba...) are taken away from the folk or pop sound imagery to which they are usually associated and re-processed by the producer. “I really come from electronic textures and I own it. For the first time, I tried my hand at acoustics, with real instruments. This is a difficult mix to dose out. It’s like a ridge line you have to be able to tread.”
In eleven tracks, the record that opens like a thriller with « Vertigo » – a theme full of danger, and anguish lurking in the winding curves of Alpine roads – takes the listener on a breath- taking journey, a constantly surprising, mystical odyssey. One crosses continents, dives in apnea to the ocean floor for several minutes (« Atlantique » gives the sensation of bringing Steve Reich, Rolando and Drexciya together in one room), then catches one's breath while listening to mysterious children voices as they chant their memories on the more atmospheric « Fauna », and goes back briefly to The Orb or Massive Attack (« Alpes »). After a dark night in the middle of the jungle (« Silicon Jungle »), there comes the time of light, of renewal. This is « Futatsu No Taiyo », which means “two suns” in Japanese, the final bravura on the record. Two fires that join their forces, their energies and give birth to new and truly transcendent music. One that gives access not to the divine but to a liberated self, freed from the weight of the past. A true rebirth.
Points of interests
- For fans of electronic, soundtracks, ambient, experimental, environmental, minimalism, avant-garde, synth, Detroit techno, gamelan, Kenji Kawai, Midori Takada, Steve Reich, The Orb, Drexciya, machines with humans emotions, epiphanies and rebirths.
- Official vinyl release of Para One’s new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace, in full audiophile experience: double LP with half speed mastered 180g vinyls in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish.
- New release from WRWTFWW Records (Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Kenji Kawai’s Ghost in the Shell Original Soundtrack, Pierre Barouh’s Le Pollen, John Carpenter’s Dark Star Soundtrack, Grauzone’s Eisbär…), label founded by Olivier Ducret of Mental Groove (Miss Kittin, Orbe, Donato Dozzy...) and Stephan Armleder of Villa Magica Records (Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Christian Marclay, Stephan Eicher, John Armleder, Sylvie Fleury…)
More
DLP: 180g vinyl, Heavy Sleeve, UV Spot Varnish, Sticker
Tracklisting DLP
A1. Vertigo 4:32
A2. Shin Sekai 5:16
A3. Virtual Satori 6:17
B1. Sundial 3:44
B2. Atlantique 4:56
B3. Fauna 4:03
C1. Alpes 5:10
C2. Yret 5:46
C3. Silicon Jungle 5:39
D1. Ars Nova 5:41
D2. Futatsu No Taiyo 4:28
Info
WRWTFWW Records is happy to announce the release of Para One’s new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace, available in half speed mastered 180g double lp housed in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish.
Machines of Loving Grace, the new album by Para One, whose real name is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier could be called fiction. It is an object freed from constraints, formats, genres, territories: the gospel of a new world. Six years after Club, eight years after Passion, his previous LP, this lover of electronic music, who has also been putting his sensitivity to the service of movies (soundtracks for Céline Sciamma in particular) opens with this record a new dimension in his artistic career. “I needed to break away from patterns and systematisms of formats, and take unexpected turns. To do so, I had first to allow myself to do so”.
Allow oneself and maybe above all confront oneself – with one’s childhood, with one’s childhood’s ghosts, and what fantasies, ideals, memories, and grey areas they harbor. He had to go back – without giving up on his position as an adult, as a full-fledged artist – to the sources of his imagination, to the moment when music was holding almost mystical power. And then revisit it to make something new out of it. Just like Sanity, Madness & the Family (the feature film directed by Para One that he just finished and of which it is a consubstantial part), Machines of Loving Grace has an investigation around a family secret and the father figure as its starting point. “When you go down the path – of a work, of a person, of the past – you never really find out what was. You find yourself,” explains Para One. For the musician/producer, this personal, identity quest doubles with a quest for sound. Machines of Loving Grace is both the story behind and the result of it.
After defining the structure of the album, Para One went exploring the sounds, and the figureheads that shaped his sensibility as a musician: soundtracks of Japanese anime watched hundreds of times; Indonesian drums and gamelan; the peculiar harmonies, on the verge of dissonance of Bulgarian Voices; Steve Reich’s minimal music; or Detroit techno music. Several trips, to Bali, Japan, and also Bulgaria, have thus fueled the album, clashing with and shaping the electronic architectures of Para One.
In Bali, he went deep into the jungle with the Suar Agung Group, who play jegog, a particular form of gamelan, to record the astounding « Silicon Jungle ». In Sofia, he met with the Mystère des voix Bulgares group. “I have long been fascinated by their peculiar, and voluntarily borderline off-key harmonies, between the East and the West. The text they sing is an invented language. The idea was really to create a traditional, cosmic song from another planet.” The choir illuminates « Shin Sekai », one of the most beautiful tracks in the album, that could be seen as a manifesto: like some emotional and cultural overlap, it blends percussions recorded with KODO on the island of Sado in Japan, violin played by Arthur Simonini, treated as if it were Arvo Pärt, and a very trance-like electronic arpeggio – which has become one of the signatures of Para One’s over the years.
It is also representative of the multiple weaving, between machine and human hand, acoustic and electronic textures, ritual practices and contemporary arrangements, which run through the record and make up its mystery, its oddness: the instruments used (guitar, marimba...) are taken away from the folk or pop sound imagery to which they are usually associated and re-processed by the producer. “I really come from electronic textures and I own it. For the first time, I tried my hand at acoustics, with real instruments. This is a difficult mix to dose out. It’s like a ridge line you have to be able to tread.”
In eleven tracks, the record that opens like a thriller with « Vertigo » – a theme full of danger, and anguish lurking in the winding curves of Alpine roads – takes the listener on a breath- taking journey, a constantly surprising, mystical odyssey. One crosses continents, dives in apnea to the ocean floor for several minutes (« Atlantique » gives the sensation of bringing Steve Reich, Rolando and Drexciya together in one room), then catches one's breath while listening to mysterious children voices as they chant their memories on the more atmospheric « Fauna », and goes back briefly to The Orb or Massive Attack (« Alpes »). After a dark night in the middle of the jungle (« Silicon Jungle »), there comes the time of light, of renewal. This is « Futatsu No Taiyo », which means “two suns” in Japanese, the final bravura on the record. Two fires that join their forces, their energies and give birth to new and truly transcendent music. One that gives access not to the divine but to a liberated self, freed from the weight of the past. A true rebirth.
Points of interests
- For fans of electronic, soundtracks, ambient, experimental, environmental, minimalism, avant-garde, synth, Detroit techno, gamelan, Kenji Kawai, Midori Takada, Steve Reich, The Orb, Drexciya, machines with humans emotions, epiphanies and rebirths.
- Official vinyl release of Para One’s new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace, in full audiophile experience: double LP with half speed mastered 180g vinyls in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish.
- New release from WRWTFWW Records (Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Kenji Kawai’s Ghost in the Shell Original Soundtrack, Pierre Barouh’s Le Pollen, John Carpenter’s Dark Star Soundtrack, Grauzone’s Eisbär…), label founded by Olivier Ducret of Mental Groove (Miss Kittin, Orbe, Donato Dozzy...) and Stephan Armleder of Villa Magica Records (Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Christian Marclay, Stephan Eicher, John Armleder, Sylvie Fleury…)
More
2LP BEC5161964 UPC: 5060281619648 Territories: World ex UK /F
Special Remarks: 2LP + CD included
Tracklist: A1 Lean On Me (Video Dub) / A2 Vibrations (Live Mix)
B1 You Too / B2 Albatros (Club Mix) / B3 Wake Me Up (Remix)
C1 Sigmund (Bootleg) / C2 The Talking Drums (Dub) / C3 Mother (Dead Mix)
D1 Animal Style (Club Edit) / D2 Compute Feat. Surkin (Rave Mix) D3 When The Night Feat. Jaw (Acid Mix)
The loyal composer of all the original soundtracks for Céline Sciamma's movies, Jean Baptiste de Laubier aka Para One offers to "Bande de Filles" 9 instrumental pieces and the track "Slow Down" featuring Frida Sundemo.
More
Special Remarks: 2LP + CD included
Tracklist: A1 Lean On Me (Video Dub) / A2 Vibrations (Live Mix)
B1 You Too / B2 Albatros (Club Mix) / B3 Wake Me Up (Remix)
C1 Sigmund (Bootleg) / C2 The Talking Drums (Dub) / C3 Mother (Dead Mix)
D1 Animal Style (Club Edit) / D2 Compute Feat. Surkin (Rave Mix) D3 When The Night Feat. Jaw (Acid Mix)
The loyal composer of all the original soundtracks for Céline Sciamma's movies, Jean Baptiste de Laubier aka Para One offers to "Bande de Filles" 9 instrumental pieces and the track "Slow Down" featuring Frida Sundemo.
More
UPC: 5060281618634 Release : 16.06.2014 Territories: World, ex F,UK,US/NZ/AUS
Special Remarks: 2LP in gatefold sleeve + CD included
Tracklist: A1 Lean On Me (Video Dub) / A2 Vibrations (Live Mix) B1 You Too / B2 Albatros (Club Mix) / B3 Wake Me Up (Remix)
C1 Sigmund (Bootleg) / C2 The Talking Drums (Dub) / C3 Mother (Dead Mix) D1 Animal Style (Club Edit) / D2 Compute Feat. Surkin (Rave Mix)
D3 When The Night Feat. Jaw (Acid Mix)
Short info:
Among a thousand projects, Para One is back on the dance floor with "Club", a new album which was not meant to be one, but believe it or not: it's serious stuff! "The 'Passion' album is the background for this, as I decided to reshape it for my live act, explains Para One. I've rebuilt the tracks entirely, making live versions for festivals and bigger clubs. Then I found myself with a totally different album. It's not a live album. The tracks have been modified and reinterpreted. It's my tribute to Soulwax's "Night Versions". Subtlety was not really an option, it had to hit kind of hard. The tracks had to sound real in a club situation and people are now meant to dance to them! It's also a 'treasure hunt' kind of record with many references. It sounds like my DJ sets, when I mix many things and styles, old and new, because that's how a club should sound. It's a place where memories belong."
The pop, melancholic and highly danceable "Passion", was meant to be listened to at home or on quiet dance floors, but "Club" only retains the melodies and vocal hooks. It smells like sweat, joy and abandoned bodies. Packed with English acid house piano, huge beats, elegiac vocals, references to UK Garage, EDM filtered french touch and house, "Club" dives into the heart of dance music. It's a 3.0 rave emblem, a daring record to make people dance without selling out.
More
Special Remarks: 2LP in gatefold sleeve + CD included
Tracklist: A1 Lean On Me (Video Dub) / A2 Vibrations (Live Mix) B1 You Too / B2 Albatros (Club Mix) / B3 Wake Me Up (Remix)
C1 Sigmund (Bootleg) / C2 The Talking Drums (Dub) / C3 Mother (Dead Mix) D1 Animal Style (Club Edit) / D2 Compute Feat. Surkin (Rave Mix)
D3 When The Night Feat. Jaw (Acid Mix)
Short info:
Among a thousand projects, Para One is back on the dance floor with "Club", a new album which was not meant to be one, but believe it or not: it's serious stuff! "The 'Passion' album is the background for this, as I decided to reshape it for my live act, explains Para One. I've rebuilt the tracks entirely, making live versions for festivals and bigger clubs. Then I found myself with a totally different album. It's not a live album. The tracks have been modified and reinterpreted. It's my tribute to Soulwax's "Night Versions". Subtlety was not really an option, it had to hit kind of hard. The tracks had to sound real in a club situation and people are now meant to dance to them! It's also a 'treasure hunt' kind of record with many references. It sounds like my DJ sets, when I mix many things and styles, old and new, because that's how a club should sound. It's a place where memories belong."
The pop, melancholic and highly danceable "Passion", was meant to be listened to at home or on quiet dance floors, but "Club" only retains the melodies and vocal hooks. It smells like sweat, joy and abandoned bodies. Packed with English acid house piano, huge beats, elegiac vocals, references to UK Garage, EDM filtered french touch and house, "Club" dives into the heart of dance music. It's a 3.0 rave emblem, a daring record to make people dance without selling out.
More
Para One returns will the next single from his brilliant album 'Passion', following on from previous single EP 'Lean On Me'. 'When The Night' is a slice of futuristic, soulful disco.
'When The Night' will be released on December 3rd, with a vinyl EP release complete with remixes from his Parisian peers Logo, Discodeine and DVNO.
Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, aka Para One has long crossed the borders between house, techno, electro, R&B and hip-hop. From his Parisian base he's made a rich and influential career (alongside peers such as Justice, Sebastian and DJ Medhi) out of music suffused with a hyperactive intensity.
Tracklist:
A1. When The Night (feat. Jaw)
A2. When The Night (feat. Jaw) [Logo Remix]
A3. When The Night (feat. Jaw) [Discodeine Remix]
B1. When The Night (feat. Jaw) [DVNO Remix]
B2. When The Night [Instrumental]
B3. When The Night (feat. Jaw) Acapella
More
'When The Night' will be released on December 3rd, with a vinyl EP release complete with remixes from his Parisian peers Logo, Discodeine and DVNO.
Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, aka Para One has long crossed the borders between house, techno, electro, R&B and hip-hop. From his Parisian base he's made a rich and influential career (alongside peers such as Justice, Sebastian and DJ Medhi) out of music suffused with a hyperactive intensity.
Tracklist:
A1. When The Night (feat. Jaw)
A2. When The Night (feat. Jaw) [Logo Remix]
A3. When The Night (feat. Jaw) [Discodeine Remix]
B1. When The Night (feat. Jaw) [DVNO Remix]
B2. When The Night [Instrumental]
B3. When The Night (feat. Jaw) Acapella
More
1
Para One, - Ice Cold
2
Para One, - Wake Me Up
3
Para One, - Every Little Thing (feat. Irfane and Teki Latex)
4
Para One, - Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5
Para One, Jaw, - When The Night
6
Para One, - Sigmund
7
Para One, - Love Ave
8
Para One, - You
9
Para One, - Albatros
10
Para One, - Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
11
Para One, - The Talking Drums
12
Para One, - Empire
Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, aka Para One, has always been an hyperactive guy. He first started as no-nonsense hip-hop producer in the mid-nineties, making beats for undeground rap artists. His recording studio was actually his one-room apartment in Southern Paris, where MCs were coming on a daily basis, crammed around a mic, an MPC and a battered convertible. At the turn of the century, he began producing his own instrumental tracks and soon got in touch with the TTC people, then at the core of the burgeoning French indie rap scene. This was the beginning of a new exploration in sound for him : from traditional rap, Para One switched to IDM and techno-infused beats, fizzing with 8-bits FX and deconstructed grooves. After TTC's first LP Ceci n'est pas un disque, in 2002, for Ninja Tune's rap sublabel Big Dada, Para produced L'Atelier's (an indie rap supergroup) album for seminal Parisian label Institubes, with his boy Tacteel, whom with he also started a live electronic project named FuckALoop. In 2003 came the massive " Beatdown EP ", and then TTC's 2nd album in 2004, Bâtards Sensibles, two records that definitely proved how rap attitude and electronic wizardry could be melt into one single sound - an idea many people didn't quite buy at the time. In 2005, Laubier graduated from the FEMIS film school, and found the time to start working on his first solo LP, the critically acclaimed Epiphanie, that came out in 2006 on Institubes.
Intense touring years followed, both as a DJ and live act, all over Europe, North America, Japan, alongside other Institubes artists such as Surkin and Bobmo. He played at Coachella twice, Pukkelpop, Calvi on the Rocks, Primaverra. Reknown for his heavy technical skills, he also became a hot remixer (Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, etc.) and a hot producer (Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda and now Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for his Femis friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, and directed his own film in 2010, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy. After the demise of Institubes in early 2011, he and his mates Bobmo and Surkin set up a new imprint called Marble, for which Para already produced or co-produced a dozen tracks. He simulteanously worked on his second album, called Passion, that'll be out in a few weeks. This a new shift again in Para One's career : the album feels much warmer and confortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits, complete with vocals from Tekilatex, Irfane and Jaw.
The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable sexy touch : it's teeming with round-shaped sounds, wet textures and gentle aural strokes. The whole movement is mid-paced and light-headed, and it's clearly a home-listening, or even bed-listening, slow jam album. The tenderness often gets spaced up or angularized, though. The beats sometimes manage to sound both smooth and rough, easy and intricate, and ghosts of Para's rap training can be heard everywhere.There's also hints of 2-step, deep house, IDM and boogie funk, yet it's a singular, idiosyncratic record, made with an extremely cohesive approach. It's an almost serene effort, and it's certainly generous and loving in the way it unfurls its numerous ideas. This is an album you get deep into, but there's nothing dramatic to it - it's just unadultered, voluptuous pleasure
Tracklisting CD:
1. Ice Cold
2. Wake Me Up
3. Every Little Thing (feat Irfane and Teki Latex)
4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5. When the Night (feat. Jaw)
6. Sigmund
7. Love Ave (feat. Additional vocals by Jaw)
8. You
9. Albatros
10. Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
11. The Talking Drums
12. Empire
More
Intense touring years followed, both as a DJ and live act, all over Europe, North America, Japan, alongside other Institubes artists such as Surkin and Bobmo. He played at Coachella twice, Pukkelpop, Calvi on the Rocks, Primaverra. Reknown for his heavy technical skills, he also became a hot remixer (Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, etc.) and a hot producer (Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda and now Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for his Femis friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, and directed his own film in 2010, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy. After the demise of Institubes in early 2011, he and his mates Bobmo and Surkin set up a new imprint called Marble, for which Para already produced or co-produced a dozen tracks. He simulteanously worked on his second album, called Passion, that'll be out in a few weeks. This a new shift again in Para One's career : the album feels much warmer and confortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits, complete with vocals from Tekilatex, Irfane and Jaw.
The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable sexy touch : it's teeming with round-shaped sounds, wet textures and gentle aural strokes. The whole movement is mid-paced and light-headed, and it's clearly a home-listening, or even bed-listening, slow jam album. The tenderness often gets spaced up or angularized, though. The beats sometimes manage to sound both smooth and rough, easy and intricate, and ghosts of Para's rap training can be heard everywhere.There's also hints of 2-step, deep house, IDM and boogie funk, yet it's a singular, idiosyncratic record, made with an extremely cohesive approach. It's an almost serene effort, and it's certainly generous and loving in the way it unfurls its numerous ideas. This is an album you get deep into, but there's nothing dramatic to it - it's just unadultered, voluptuous pleasure
Tracklisting CD:
1. Ice Cold
2. Wake Me Up
3. Every Little Thing (feat Irfane and Teki Latex)
4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5. When the Night (feat. Jaw)
6. Sigmund
7. Love Ave (feat. Additional vocals by Jaw)
8. You
9. Albatros
10. Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
11. The Talking Drums
12. Empire
More
More records from marble
1
Para One, - Ice Cold
2
Para One, - Wake Me Up
3
Para One, - Every Little Thing (feat. Irfane and Teki Latex)
4
Para One, - Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5
Para One, Jaw, - When The Night
6
Para One, - Sigmund
7
Para One, - Love Ave
8
Para One, - You
9
Para One, - Albatros
10
Para One, - Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
11
Para One, - The Talking Drums
12
Para One, - Empire
Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, aka Para One, has always been an hyperactive guy. He first started as no-nonsense hip-hop producer in the mid-nineties, making beats for undeground rap artists. His recording studio was actually his one-room apartment in Southern Paris, where MCs were coming on a daily basis, crammed around a mic, an MPC and a battered convertible. At the turn of the century, he began producing his own instrumental tracks and soon got in touch with the TTC people, then at the core of the burgeoning French indie rap scene. This was the beginning of a new exploration in sound for him : from traditional rap, Para One switched to IDM and techno-infused beats, fizzing with 8-bits FX and deconstructed grooves. After TTC's first LP Ceci n'est pas un disque, in 2002, for Ninja Tune's rap sublabel Big Dada, Para produced L'Atelier's (an indie rap supergroup) album for seminal Parisian label Institubes, with his boy Tacteel, whom with he also started a live electronic project named FuckALoop. In 2003 came the massive " Beatdown EP ", and then TTC's 2nd album in 2004, Bâtards Sensibles, two records that definitely proved how rap attitude and electronic wizardry could be melt into one single sound - an idea many people didn't quite buy at the time. In 2005, Laubier graduated from the FEMIS film school, and found the time to start working on his first solo LP, the critically acclaimed Epiphanie, that came out in 2006 on Institubes.
Intense touring years followed, both as a DJ and live act, all over Europe, North America, Japan, alongside other Institubes artists such as Surkin and Bobmo. He played at Coachella twice, Pukkelpop, Calvi on the Rocks, Primaverra. Reknown for his heavy technical skills, he also became a hot remixer (Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, etc.) and a hot producer (Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda and now Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for his Femis friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, and directed his own film in 2010, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy. After the demise of Institubes in early 2011, he and his mates Bobmo and Surkin set up a new imprint called Marble, for which Para already produced or co-produced a dozen tracks. He simulteanously worked on his second album, called Passion, that'll be out in a few weeks. This a new shift again in Para One's career : the album feels much warmer and confortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits, complete with vocals from Tekilatex, Irfane and Jaw.
The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable sexy touch : it's teeming with round-shaped sounds, wet textures and gentle aural strokes. The whole movement is mid-paced and light-headed, and it's clearly a home-listening, or even bed-listening, slow jam album. The tenderness often gets spaced up or angularized, though. The beats sometimes manage to sound both smooth and rough, easy and intricate, and ghosts of Para's rap training can be heard everywhere.There's also hints of 2-step, deep house, IDM and boogie funk, yet it's a singular, idiosyncratic record, made with an extremely cohesive approach. It's an almost serene effort, and it's certainly generous and loving in the way it unfurls its numerous ideas. This is an album you get deep into, but there's nothing dramatic to it - it's just unadultered, voluptuous pleasure
Tracklisting CD:
1. Ice Cold
2. Wake Me Up
3. Every Little Thing (feat Irfane and Teki Latex)
4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5. When the Night (feat. Jaw)
6. Sigmund
7. Love Ave (feat. Additional vocals by Jaw)
8. You
9. Albatros
10. Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
11. The Talking Drums
12. Empire
More
Intense touring years followed, both as a DJ and live act, all over Europe, North America, Japan, alongside other Institubes artists such as Surkin and Bobmo. He played at Coachella twice, Pukkelpop, Calvi on the Rocks, Primaverra. Reknown for his heavy technical skills, he also became a hot remixer (Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, etc.) and a hot producer (Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda and now Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for his Femis friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, and directed his own film in 2010, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy. After the demise of Institubes in early 2011, he and his mates Bobmo and Surkin set up a new imprint called Marble, for which Para already produced or co-produced a dozen tracks. He simulteanously worked on his second album, called Passion, that'll be out in a few weeks. This a new shift again in Para One's career : the album feels much warmer and confortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits, complete with vocals from Tekilatex, Irfane and Jaw.
The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable sexy touch : it's teeming with round-shaped sounds, wet textures and gentle aural strokes. The whole movement is mid-paced and light-headed, and it's clearly a home-listening, or even bed-listening, slow jam album. The tenderness often gets spaced up or angularized, though. The beats sometimes manage to sound both smooth and rough, easy and intricate, and ghosts of Para's rap training can be heard everywhere.There's also hints of 2-step, deep house, IDM and boogie funk, yet it's a singular, idiosyncratic record, made with an extremely cohesive approach. It's an almost serene effort, and it's certainly generous and loving in the way it unfurls its numerous ideas. This is an album you get deep into, but there's nothing dramatic to it - it's just unadultered, voluptuous pleasure
Tracklisting CD:
1. Ice Cold
2. Wake Me Up
3. Every Little Thing (feat Irfane and Teki Latex)
4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude)
5. When the Night (feat. Jaw)
6. Sigmund
7. Love Ave (feat. Additional vocals by Jaw)
8. You
9. Albatros
10. Lean On Me (feat. Teki Latex)
11. The Talking Drums
12. Empire
More