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2LP
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WRWTFWW 054LP
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WRWTFWW Records announce the release of Para One's new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace. The new album by Para One, whose real name is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier could be called fiction. Six years after Club, eight years after Passion (BEC 5161202/5161203), 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. 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. Machines of Loving Grace has an investigation around a family secret and the father figure as its starting point. 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. 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. 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. Half speed mastered on 180 gram vinyl; housed in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish.
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LP+CD
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BEC 5161964
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French producer Jean-Baptiste de Laubier aka Para One (TTC) has loyally composed all of the original soundtracks for French screenwriter and director Céline Sciamma's films. Para One now presents his soundtrack to Sciamma's acclaimed 2014 film Bande de filles (Girlhood), featuring an appearance by Frida Sundemo. Presented on LP with CD included.
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CD
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BEC 5161202
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Jean-Baptiste de Laubier aka Para One, has always been an hyperactive guy: he produced tracks for electro/abstract hip-hop band TTC, started a live electronic project named FuckALoop with Tacteel, toured worldwide, remixed Daft Punk, Bloc Party, Justice, Boys Noize, produced Birdy Nam Nam, Slice & Soda, and Mickey Green, composed the soundtrack for his FEMIS friend Céline Sciamma's movie Water Lilies, directed his own movie, It Was On Earth That I Knew Joy, and created his own imprint Marble together with Surkin and Bobmo. Renowned producer Para One is now back with his sophomore album Passion, featuring Teki Latex, Irfane, and Jaw. This album feels much warmer and more comfortable than his previous work. It's also much poppier and has a fine number of true hits. The Euro-neurotic's tension is still there sometimes, but the muscle softened and the flesh took over. This is basically up-tempo, 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 two-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 unadulterated, voluptuous pleasure.
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12"
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BEC 5161285
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Para One returns with the next single from his brilliant album Passion (BEC 5161203). "When the Night" is a slice of futuristic, soulful disco and it is remixed here by his Parisian peers Logo, Discodeine and DVNO. Jean-Baptiste de Laubier aka Para One has made a rich and influential career out of music suffused with a hyperactive intensity. Includes download card.
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LP+CD
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BEC 5161203
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In 2005, Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, aka Para One, 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 and 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 Mickey Green). In 2007, he composed the soundtrack for 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 simultaneously worked on his second album, Passion. This a new shift again in Para One's career: the album feels much warmer and more comfortable 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. This is basically uptempo, futuristic R&B with an unmissable, sexy touch, 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 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.
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12"
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INS 12017EP
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"In just a couple of months, thanks to explosive live shows, radical remixes for Daft Punk, Trabant, Teki Latex and most recently Bloc Party, Para One turned from pioneer of the so-called New French Sound to rising dance star. His debut album Epiphanie is starting to come up in 'Best of 2006' lists and the first single off the album, 'Dudun-Dun,' was clearly one of the biggest indie dance hits of the year. After the massive electro onslaught of 'Dudun-Dun,' this second single showcases a somewhat softer side. 'Midnight Swim' is almost a song, it's a hymn to some strange, elegiac version of Ibiza, shuffling in silicon sand. It's Balearic, affecting; it swells and engulfs. We know somebody who used it as a wedding song and it makes perfect sense." Includes remixes by Riton, Surkin and Beckett & Taylor.
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