Music with purely good vibes is duo’s cure for troubled times
In dark times, music can act as a salve of positivity, a form of escapism that puts the rest of the world on the back burner.
If that salve comes with a danceable beat, even better.
“You don’t decide what world you’re going to live in, but at any given time you can decide what attitude you will have,” says Paul ArmandDelille, the Polo in the permanently upbeat French electronic duo Polo & Pan (Alexandre Grynszpan makes up the “Pan” half of the name). “Instead of being an echo chamber to the angst, we’re trying to just say something positive, and the crowds really respond to it. They’re hungry for it, for this kind of message.”
Those positive vibes pour off Polo & Pan’s debut album,
“Caravelle,” and will be in tremendous supply when the duo hits the Independent on Wednesday, June 20, for the final show of its first U.S. tour. And while positivity in music is sometimes just a reflection of the maker’s personality, in this case, it’s also a mission.
“We’re trying to send some positive new music into troubled times,” says ArmandDelille, a Franco American who is also using the tour to visit some old stomping grounds (he worked in San Francisco for a DJ software company about a decade ago).
“We want to make a project that is very positive, but also profound and well-produced and well thought out. … When an artist digs into the hurt, the pain, you can bring out some really nice tracks and it’s a great way to be credible as an artist. We try to be the counterpoint to that, with something very positive, but also with some hidden messages and some profoundness to it.”
It comes in the form of electronic dance music with a heavy South American influence and French lyrics. Songs like “Canopée” and “Plage Isolée (Soleil Levant)” would fit comfortably into the catalog of a group like Thievery Corporation, while “Kirghiz” more closely hews toward the French house of Daft Punk. It’s upbeat electronica, made for Sunday afternoons every
bit as much as Saturday nights.
Polo & Pan’s sound comes out of a love of South American music and cumbia, a form of dance popular in Colombia, as well as French electronic pioneer Air, among others.
When Armand-Delille met Grynszpan, they were DJs at a club in Paris, linked together by a varied set of interests, ranging from Claude Debussy to Disney soundtracks and old movie scores. More important to their eventual pairing than their similarities, though, were their differences.
“Alex comes from cinema and movies, and quite likes the structure for a song, with a lot of events and different parts,” ArmandDelille says. “I’m going to be working on the texture, the vibe . ... It’s a nice collision between us.”
That Disney connection ends up being an important part of the mission. Some Polo & Pan songs play sophisticated cartoon soundtracks, and some of the accompanying visuals match the tone; the video for the aforementioned “Plage Isolée” is hand drawn and stop animated.
“We’re trying to bring a little bit more enchantment into the world — the word is very disenchanted currently,” he says. “It’s also about celebrating childhood and being a little bit naive.”
“We’re trying to bring a little bit more enchantment into the world — the word is very disenchanted currently.”
Paul Armand-Delille