The infamous Marble co-owner, Para One, just unleashed his newest sounds with the release of his new EP, Mother. The EP’s title track delivers those specific elements that you have come to expect from Para One; Electro cuts fused with carefully sequenced percussion, unexpectedly brilliant sudden effects and a strong digital bite. The Mr. Oizo remix slows things down but turns the dark and dirty up, adding a new, welcomed spin to the original. Finally, Compute (featuring Surkin) paints a dark digital portrait with Electro elements, well-placed samples, intricate percussion and brilliant change-ups that leave you screaming for more.
It's been a helluva long time since my last post and I apologize for that. Summer is a busy time and I have been trying to promote and poster for more and more parties so my time is limited. I have been on a major drum and bass tip lately but I won't defy the original intent of this page by crossing the genres here.
Para One and Tacteel are back together at last with a smooth and abstract sounding EP for Fools Gold which is welcome news. For awhile there I thought FG would continue to put remakes of every disco song on the planet with the like of Duck Sauce and Treasure Fingers churning out the Nu disco flavour at an alarmingly crash and burn rate. This EP sees them broaden their horizons with a intelligent and balanced sound from Para and Tacteel. A1 chugs a neat little 80 bpm style rocker while the 2nd and 3rd tracks 'Rome' and 'Touch' shimmer with new icy production that pays homage to styles of old with washy vocals and shiny cymbals. All in all worth the wait from the label that could have self destructed but instead reinvented itself, at least for now.
In March it was announced that French Electro imprint Institubes, was to be disbanded, citing financial problems after eight years of sterling service to the underground electronic music scene. In bittersweet conjunction with the sad news, came another announcement: that the new Marble label headed by Para One, Surkin and Bobmo was to continue delivering tasty French electro in Institubes’ absence. This week we caught up with Jean-Baptiste de Laubier aka Para One, for an exclusive insight into the Marble imprint and what it has in store for the EDM community.
It all kicks off after the jump…
GDD™:Thanks for taking the time to chat with us Jean. Let’s kick things off: Institubes has left behind one hell of a legacy. In what ways will you guys seek to do things differently with Marble?
PO:Yeah, we’re really proud of what Institubes has accomplished in the past, but everything in the industry has changed during the last decade, so we wanted to start fresh and come up with a very different concept. Marble’s an artist’s label, we don’t need to make money with it since the three of us can earn a living by playing gigs, or producing remixes, and getting income from publishing. We just needed a new platform to develop our own “brand”, and our careers. It’s a much lighter structure, we don’t have many expenses since we don’t have to produce actual records. It allows us to be super fast, so we’re gonna release a 12″ every three weeks for the first six months! The end of Institubes was really sad but it taught us a lot, and we took experience from that. Now, with Sound Pellegrino and Marble we can keep the family together and move on.
GDD™: Glad to hear you guys are still a unit. Sound Pellegrino definitely offer their specific feel to a track, but is there a trademark “Marble” sound that you guys are gunning for?
PO: At first, there wasn’t. But with the times, some kind of trademark sound could reveal itself naturally. We just want to release fun & clever timeless dance music, with a modern twist. So it will be very diverse, style-wise, but the spirit stays the same. The three of us are very involved in all the artistic choices we have to make for the label, so I guess our taste will shape that trademark. For example, we just started producing together as the “Marble Players” and as we were doing the second EP – due to be out before the summer – we realized that we were starting to have “Marble Players” specific moves.
GDD™: So what roles do each of you play in the label?
PO: We share studios here in Paris and we’re in everyday of the week, so it’s really easy to discuss everything all together. We obvisouly have to split work into specific tasks but for the moment we operate as a team. We have to agree to all artistic choices.
GDD™: The big question that many are asking is: will the formation and running of Marble result in a reduced touring schedule for the three of you?
PO: On the contrary, because we’re planning on putting together Marble tours. We want to produce cool parties around, with guests.
GDD™: Very cool, we look forward to hearing more about those. Are there any imprints besides Institubes that you admire and look to as almost model labels, and great inspiration for Marble?
PO: In the past, obviously, tons of labels had a huge impact on us like Strictly Rythm, Dance Mania, Relief, Trax, UR, DJ International, Hardwax, and Warp. The other day we also realized how important International Deejay Gigolos had been in the late 90′s, early naughties for us. All those labels built a huge legacy, but our concept is much closer to recent labels like our friends Sound Pellegrino. The way to put out music and promote releases has to change, and we get inspiration amongst those new, lighter structures.
GDD™: The freedom and availability of digital distribution services has opened up the musical floodgates in recent years. How tricky is it to run an independent label successfully in present day?
PO: Our answer to the difficulties of the market is: don’t count on music sales income. We’re not expecting the mp3 sales to be big enough to keep the ship afloat. We invest money in the label, we will promote parties, build partnerships, keeping the outlays as light as possible. Expecting your label to become super big by selling records is a plan that won’t work anymore, not in 2011. We could sit and be sad about it, but we decided to push forward, as it’s no use trying to hold on to what the industry was like in the past. It’s a lost cause.
GDD™: What was the vibe within the French electro scene when news broke that Institubes had disbanded?
PO: We were surprised and moved to see how big the reactions were, actually. It looks like artists, other labels and fans were very affected by it. I guess everybody took it as another warning on how fragile those independent labels are.
GDD™: How do you view the current musical climate for a newly founded French electro label? And how do you see that climate evolving in the coming years?
PO: We’re at a turning point, definitely. but French electronic music’s history is all about that, right? We had “waves” for the last three decades at least, with lots of new exciting artists coming up every time. It’s true that in the underground at least, the bangey distorted club music is fading out. We saw that coming for a while, obviously, and now all eyes are on a new generation that’s rising up at the moment; along with Club Cheval, Sound Pellegrino, Youngunz, and others, we’re proud to bring our own vision to enrich this new sound.
GDD™: Has the resurgence of 2-step, garage and uk-funky influenced your sound or ideas for future production?
PO: It has, probably. It’s natural that after years of straight 4/4 house and techno music, the rise of these new styles and beat sequences is inspiring. The English scene is like a laboratory, with English producers frequently bringing new ideas to the table even if these are sometimes recycled ideas! For our part, we have been influenced for a long time by Todd Edwards who was the originator of that style, so it’s natural to come back to it. After all, there is a lot of new exciting dance music around us, we’re eager to play each one of our gigs because of all these cool new tracks we can test out.
GDD™: How active a part do each of you play in the creative process for the other artists on your label?
PO: We are very invested in the music we want to release, even when it’s from other artists. Most of the times we open the sessions at our studio and discuss it with the guys, sometimes we can even help with a mix, add a sound, or whatever. It really depends, sometimes we just want to release a song a friend sent us as it is.
GDD™: What exciting stuff do you guys have instore for 2011 and 2012?
PO: Too much to name it all! Like I said, tons of EPs will be released this first year, and probably at least a compilation, maybe even albums. Can’t say it all for now, but you’d better stay tuned!
GDD™: Thanks for taking the time Jean, and from all of the GDD Team, we wish the three of you the best of luck with the everything.
Below is the latest edition of our weekly feature, Stuck On Repeat. The premise is simple, we’ve asked all our contributors to submit one track and a brief write-up. The track can be new or it can be old, just whatever we could not stop listening to this week. These are the songs we’ve had Stuck On Repeat.
In the same way that I don’t do hard drugs but enjoy the fuck out of coke rap, I don’t drive but love songs that sound like cruising the outskirts of LA. Came across Melbourne producer Obsolete (Reiss Latimer) this week, and the guy has perfected the sound of rooftop drinking, front stoop sitting summertime. Downtempo beat music doesn’t get near enough credit. Obsolete’s tracks are slick, but equally experimental. My favorite is “Surreal Lullaby” which samples Erykah Badu and Common. The vocals work effortlessly with the beats, and I challenge anyone to say there’s no beauty or interest in the downtempo genre after listening to this track. I wish more DJs played this kind of stuff out. Don’t be afraid to keep that dancefloor grown & sexy.
To be honest, Surkin, the French producer and DJ, could have released anything and it would be stuck on repeat for me. I still haven’t stopped listening to his Next of Kin EP from a couple of years ago. Marble Players is his collaboration with the talented Para One and their joint track, “Marble Anthem” actually does a great job of creating a true love child of each of their talents and spheres. Big fuzzy samples and soulful vocal snippets (a mostly Surkin realm) merge seamlessly with Para’s clean synths and crisp percussion. “Marble Anthem” sounds like a big, banging intro to even better things to come. Hope so.
My Bay Area fetish was largely catalyzed in 2006 upon hearing “Tell Me When To Go” and Mistah FAB’s “Ghost Ride It.” “Ghost Ride It” was more of a novelty pleasure, but “Tell Me When To Go,” to me, is one of the best West Coast rap songs of all time. It’s catchy, it’s hilarious, it’s so representative of a specific time and place, it has so much fantastic hyphy slang, and it slaps hard as fuck; I know it’s one of the most “mainstream” hyphy songs (probably the hyphy ambassador to the rest of the U.S., in fact) but that’s for a reason. Anyway, my new favorite Jersey boy, Clams Casino, just released a whole bunch of instrumentals and rap remixes from 2006, some fantastically prototypical mid-2000’s ish, with Clams’ signature static-y lushness washing over it all. The “Tell Me When To Go” remix is the best, but the whole thing is totally worthwhile, and the nice folks at Space Age Hustle zipped ‘em all up for your convenience here. Go stupid (dumb, dumb).
If you know me, you know that I love female emcees a little too much. I wasn’t even going to date the boo I’m with now until she called and left 16 bars in my voicemail. I don’t know what it is, (Kid Sister you still don’t call me back) but when a girl picks up the mic I just want to give them all the support because the gender diversity in hip-hop should be a little more 50-50 than 90-10, for real. A lot of times, whenever a rap crews picks a femcee it seems like they skip over skills and get the dumb ho with ass implants that just happened to be in King magazine last week. I know, you already know this and it’s a tired subject, but it’s still real. Maybe I like female rappers so much because I get tired of dudes talking about how much brain they get. I don’t know. Don’t contemplate it, it makes you complicated. Listen to Henny B, this girl can rhyme better than you dudes. Fresh off her new Loud Lifemixtape, we got “On Deck.” Chi town swag / So I mean mug / Left eye, cause I don’t need a scrub
After the sad loss of french powerhouse label institubes, fellow frenchmen surkin, bobmo (supposed brothers ha) and para one have kicked off marble, a label that is ‘a bit more hardware-oriented, and involves multiple analog/digital mutations‘.
Having already begun recording over a year ago it comes as no surprise the quick offering from the trio as Marble Players with the ep ‘Marble Anthem’.
Keeping a hold of the bold sounds institubes was once releasing both ‘marble anthem’ and ‘playground’ offer rich techno based vibes each characterised by anolog gear or thought beats from the individual producer.
With enough of the dance fraternity supporting already from mehdi, boys noize, a-trak, sinden, strip steve to oizo its a sure bet!
