If you've been paying attention, you may already be familiar with Para One: he is one half of Fuckaloop with Institubes labelmate Tacteel; he's the guy responsible for turning Daft Punk's nearly unbearable Prime Time of Your Life into one of the most get-retarded club tracks of the year; and he is the main-man behind the boards for Big Dada's French electro-rappers TTC (say "Tay Tay Say"; il est francais, mes amis), who unsurprisingly stop by to deliver a few verses. So what to expect from Epiphanie, Para One's first solo LP? Unsurprisingly, there's a lot packed in there, most of it worth a shot.



Para One is nothing if not adventurous. He guides Epiphanie through a maze of genres-- new disco, electro house, hip-hop and even (dare I say) a pinch of trance--with a decent rate of success. The thing about Para One is that when he is on, he's so on that his other material can't compare. Slower moments such as Musclor (feat. TTC, Nobody Cared and Sages-Femmes) succumb to too much glitch, or fail to really take off. As such they pale alongside Para's bigger bangers.



Epiphanie's best moments come when Para One lets the groove go. Tracks like Turtle Trouble, Clubhoppn and the album's first 12" single Dudun-dun are all relatively straightforward. Para just lets the beats ride while he twists knobs, triggers samples and builds it all up. Next thing you know, you're that dude on the bus nodding his head like a lunatic. But the album refrains from beating the listener down: for instance, the percussion-less trance arpeggios of Liege offers respite from the glitch and distorted breaks of Sage-Femmes; and after Le Soleil Artificiels hangs up on its sample before paddling your ass in classic Para One fashion, Def Tea Machine just lazily unwinds itself over top of an indistinguishable layer of synth chords.



All in, Epiphanie is a pretty impressive album. So it should be from a producer who has been around for a few years now. France can really do no wrong at this point--they've even figured out a way to turn glitch to groove. That's not epiphany, that's fucking alchemy.