The French capital has produced an array of eccentric talent that is coming at the dancefloor at a tangent
Far be it from the Guardian Music blog to succumb to hype, much less reinforce lazy national stereotypes, but, undeniably, something is stirring in Paris. Something which, after the brash, filtered robo-house of Daft Punk and the juggernaut electro of Justice, is bringing a certain Gallic sophistication, a certain restraint and eccentricity, to French club music.
Behind the interlinked works of Masomenos (DJs, graphic designers, music producers, boutique shop owners), Seuil's increasingly diverse, leftfield techno and dOP's absurd electro-acoustic flights of fancy ? not to mention less expansive Parisian talents, such as Oleg "Skat" Poliakov, Sety and Dyed Soundorom ? you have a group of musicians who, by coming at the dancefloor at a tangent, are giving it what it always most urgently needs: existential intrigue, unexpected sonic variety, challenging music.
Like so many of dance music's best producers, Masomenos, Seuil and dOP are steeped, not in orthodox 4/4 house and techno, but in jazz, classical, hip-hop and world music. dOP's Clement Zemstov, for instance, learned to drum in Africa, while the Masomenos duo, Joan Costes and Adrien de Maublanc (whose new album, Balloons, is a magnificently playful, hallucinatory dose of post-Villalobos techno), curate a compilation series, Costes Pr�sente ..., that seeks to blur the lines between muggy after-hours techno and psychedelic lounge music.
If that all sounds rather unfashionable, it is. Indeed, if there is one clear advantage to finding your feet in a city with a small underground electronic music scene, such as Paris, it's that you to tend to cultivate pet projects and take inspiration from more unusual sources, be it Bristol's long-running experiments in dub (a clearly audible influence on the last Seuil EP, and the direct inspiration for dOP side-project, Aquarius Heaven), or raffish local oddballs N�ze. The cult Parisian duo, who specialise in a rather ripe, very French mix of pop, cabaret and electronic music, share studio space with dOP and mentored their early forays into house and techno. Before meeting N�ze, dOP have said: "The idea of putting a straight groove kick on most of our tracks was unbelievable."
If that sounds disingenuous, from a trio ? Damien Vandesande, Zemstov and singer-MC Jonathan "JAW" Illel ? who have been one of 2010's biggest clubland stories, I'm not sure it is. The compelling thing about dOP (which may or may not stand for, dope, organic and from Paris) is the clear tension and contradiction between their eclectic musical pasts as producers and musicians and their fascination with techno and partying. dOP frequently sound like what they almost are, an experimental jazz or funk trio pitched headlong into a throbbing, disorientating nightclub.
Which isn't to play up to the idea of dOP as the wild men of techno. Their club gigs ? where they use a semi-live horns, keyboards and computers set-up; JAW, a rabble-rousing, frequently semi-naked ringmaster to the fun ? have acquired a reputation for giddy, drunken hijinks. Mixmag has referred in awed terms to their, "stunning, uniquely chaotic live sets". In reality, while dOP's exuberance is no doubt shocking to clubbers more used to watching a DJ tweak a few knobs on a mixer, it hardly makes them the new Sex Pistols.
In fact, the reviewers who have complained about dOP being too repetitive and subtle are closer to the mark. dOP's seductively brilliant "mix CD" for Watergate (actually, a collection of collaborations and remixes of their own music) and their recent debut proper, Greatest Hits, are both remarkably offish and opaque. Both are much more serious and emotionally complex than you might imagine. Both, like Masomenos's or Seuil's music, require a lot of close listening before they give up their magic.
Amid the expected processed beats and tumbling, jagged synth lines, the ostensibly clubby Watergate mix is coquettish, strange, deeply enigmatic, full of unexpected detours, bursts of jazz horns and muted vocals. dOP can be silly and salacious (see, in particular, their new single with Seuil, Prostitute), but in the awesome, meditative Deaf Wagrant or Les Fils du Calvaire, they also make music possessed of a grand melancholy.
Greatest Hits is similarly conflicted. It brings to mind Amp Fiddler and Prince, Joanna Newsom's more excitable orchestral flourishes, Tom Waits, Scott Walker, often in the same song. Lyrically, it toggles between the (possibly metaphorical) cannibalistic caper, Happy Meal ? equal parts Kool Keith and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band ? and UR, a mournful ambient reverie on the universality of human experience: "You are the desperate," croons JAW, "the happiness, the hell and the heaven, the activist, the poor man and substitute. The father. The son."
Whatever this is, it is clearly not the work of your archetypal bosh bosh clubland crazies. But, then, has that not been the theme of this year? It is telling that those mostly closely allied with dOP and Masomenos ? people such as Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts, Seth Troxler, Wolf + Lamb ? are all capable of making music that is, by turns, frivolous and epically soulful, decayed, uncomfortable and provocative, but which just about holds together as functional dance music.
Paris ? and dOP's label, Circus Company ? may have emerged as an unexpected centre of all this, but, in truth, this has been one of the key stories of 2010, people creatively pulling at house music until it is danger of falling apart. Who, for you, has gone most gloriously off-piste?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/dec/30/paris-dance-music-house-france
Gina Carano Sanaa Lathan Ana Beatriz Barros Maria Menounos Shakira
