Paulo
by Nico

I decided to create the 608 ZZ label while speaking with Harold Urcun about Paul Allard.

We go way back. But we had lost Paul for close to a decade. He had spent this time in his own world, doing his things, mainly in the south of France. When he miraculously reappeared on Instagram (a couple of years ago or so), I excitedly reconnected. I discovered he was still as talented as ever, but had shifted his focus from wild self destruction to a much healthier practice : playing with modular synths !

Even if life can be complicated, even if we all have our demons, this label is the meeting point for all our positive vibrations, translated into music.wav.
"Still Dreaming" is Paul Allard’s first EP on 608 ZZ. It includes remixes by myself and Harold.

It starts with "Munster" and "Dortmund", two house tracks.
The titles refer to the summer skate contests we attended during the late 1990s in Germany. Road tripping across Europe holds such an important place in our shared memories.

In Paul’s own words, these tracks are supposed to be “pretty basic”. However, they’re not constructed in the way any other producer would produce “with a perfect structure” on a DAW in their bedroom in 2020. Paul plays music live. He records the jam in a Zoom recorder. And that’s it ! I kept the editing minimal, pretty much only shortening the tracks, and I didn’t touch or add anything.
What I love about it is the feeling of constant evolution, and Paul’s sensitive sense of balance between all music elements. It all just flows naturally, like a dreamy Tom Penny endless line.

Harold’s "Dortmund" remix then surprises us with a dubby attack. Even when Harold tries to smash some dub gimmicks on the groove, I still find that OG Def Jux influence in Harold. What’s not to love.

Then it was my turn to work on "Dortmund", which I sampled, chopped, and filtered, to create a UK-Frenchy club experimentation that can easily empty a dancefloor at peaktime, as I like club music to sound like! In fact, it’s more of a tool to smoothly divide by 2 the BPM in your mix. I might be influenced by L-VIS 1990’s Sunrise edit of the Sade anthem, which is a delicate party ender.

After listening to a glimpse of ambiant jam Paul posted on his Insta, I asked him to record a beatless joint. And he came up with "Still Dreaming" : 13 minutes of delicious modular ear candy, to relax and to listen to with closed eyes, in a cosy spaceship headed to Paul’s peaceful planet.

When it came down to my remix, I just couldn’t resist, I just had to add a breadbeat to this buttery piece of music. Then a Regaeton groove happened to fit in, so I rode with it like I stole it.

At that point, I thought we were good with the EP. But then, Paul posted one more jam on the gram, this one hip-hop-ish tune that sounded like a good old NYC electrocypher-ish Def-Juxian musical UFO.
I was right on it and immediately called Paul on the phone :
—“Hey man please send me the full jam, I’ll extract an interlude from it.” And that happens to be "ZOOM0004", the last track on this EP.

I’m already excited for what’s the future holds, considering Paul’s passion for constantly leveling up and experimenting with new modules, and his talent for succeeding to press the REC button while jamming, all in his signature charming style. But for now, I’m thrilled to introduce Still Dreaming, by the one and only Paul Allard.

—Nicolas Malinowsky



Paulo
by David

Check one two... Nicolas Malinowsky asked me, David Luraschi…. to write something about Paul.

I haven’t seen him for more than ten years maybe !? But one thing is for sure, when I first ran into him, like many others, I was struck with a sense of magic, eeeh you know, the "supernatural", that kind of shit…
If you’re lucky enough, you run into it every now and then…

And if you were me, back in 1997 and skateboarding in Paris around the 13th arrondissement, and you had the luck to cross paths with him, or you were stricken by the wrath than was Paul back then, you would witness something, you know… "supernatural". Like an explosive volcano.
And I think most of us growing up, or at least those in that window late 90s / early 2000, many of us were hypnotized, or just in permanent surprise of Paul’s capacity to outdo himself.
That’s what was most exciting for us kids growing up is… becoming something else. Being in front of a ledge or a set of stairs, staring at it and thinking nahhh, but really?

Yeah so I was saying Paul was outdoing himself and at a certain point, you turned around and he would just be light years away. We would be doing our thing and then there was planet Paul, light years away from the slightest hope that we could get any close. Because at that age, we were pretty competitive but he would just smash whatever came close like… if you happen by luck to do something new on a skateboard that nobody else had done, the next thing you know, within fifteen minutes Paul would do the same trick and push it even further and with elegant rage..

So that little fucker, hahah he would also be giggling while doing it as if he was tickling you, that was a thing that was funny and charming about him, cuz he’s a lucky charm, he is like a little hobbit. At least back then that was how it felt like… I was like "fuuuuck you little dude", but at the same time it’s so charming that you couldn’t hate him, and he was just so good on a skateboard so… we were in constant awe, and pretty excited everyday to see what else he would come up with.

So I guess, relating it to the music he is doing today, this notion of abstract has probably always been present because, well because... "mind over matter", motherfucker !

—David Luraschi