By Si Hawkins
PARA ONE REALLY IS QUITE ADMIRABLY FRENCH, EVEN IN THE MOST TESTING of circumstances. It’s 3 a.m. in London’s slightly seedy Kings Cross district, and the Paris-based producer has found himself in the middle of a nu-rave nightmare. Originally booked to play a nice low-key early set, he’s had a disagreement with the promoter and has been forced to follow frenetic Scottish dance-rockers Shitdisco, which isn’t ideal. Shitdisco’s set is subsequently gatecrashed by fellow indie scenesters the Klaxons, who then indulge in a manic sing-along and proceed to trash the stage while the audience follows suit.
Para deals with this most difficult of situations by getting quite fantastically drunk. Not that you’d realize this, as he mounts the debris-strewn stage looking a picture of Gallic cool. Narrow of trouser, stylishly side-parted and with a Gauloises hanging elegantly from his lips, he surveys the rapidly diminishing crowd and decides to speed the blinkered fuckers on their way, subjecting them to the sort of blistering sonic assault that’s guaranteed to send indie kids screaming for the exits.
It’s truly an awesome noise, and the intoxicated Para is like a man possessed. As random members of the previous band wander bewilderingly in the background, trying to salvage what’s left of their equipment, Para performs a staggering array of aural pyrotechnics, seizing on a synth riff and mutating it upwards while emitting a radiant glow of almost orgasmic concentration. Truly, he’s the Eric Clapton of knob-twiddling. A sizable crowd gradually filters back in, fascinated by the spectacle, and the promoter is clearly impressed, too, for when Para re-emerges from his aural- erotic reverie he discovers a flute of Champagne carefully placed on his otherwise redundant right-hand deck. The ultimate gift for such a gentleman.
Two days later Para is due back in Paris, zipping along on his scooter to meet up with his bandmates, brand-mates and this magazine. The stylish, richly talented performer is also the most prominent producer for TTC, France’s premier Leftfield hip-hop crew, who themselves are the focal point of Institubes, a label-brand-collective causing an almighty buzz much further afield. While TTC like to see themselves as the French wing of the East Coast electro hip-hop scene—Diplo and Spank Rock are both name-dropped regularly—elsewhere on Institubes is a plethora of producers pricking ears across several scenes, a colorful collective who’ll make an almighty scene in the center of Paris later on, as URB’s camera rolls.
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