“It’s a conscious decision in our music and in our life to try to look at the brighter side of life. We hope our music spreads a bit of that optimism too,” say French duo Polo & Pan. With a positive approach, their music feels instantly summery and takes you to an outdoors festival. Of course, it’s impossible to do so now, so in the meantime, they’ve launched the Home Sweet Home mixtape for us.
Being locked in quarantine and working separately has proven to be a challenge for them, but in the end, they’ve managed to put together this hour-long work mixing influences as different as bossa nova, disco and psych rock. And there’s more coming: in June, they’ll be releasing a new EP, so stay tuned! But that only comes because their second album, which was set to be released this year, has been put on hold until further notice. Oh, well, seems like Covid-19 is robbing us from some of the most precious things, but at the same time, offering new possibilities. Dance in isolation to the rhythm of Polo & Pan!
You published your latest album, Caravelle, back in 2017, and now, you’re back with the Home Sweet Home mixtape previous to your new album release. What has been going on these past three years? And where do you feel you stand now compared to where you were back then?
These past three years have been mainly focused on creating a live show from scratch. Starting from small venues of two hundred people, to playing festivals with more than forty thousand people in the audience. The challenge for us was mainly to figure out how to curate our music on stage since we like to use so many instruments from various countries. Obviously, we had to make choices on what we would focus on playing/singing and how to make it fun and readable by the audience. It was a long process for us to evolve from DJs to stage performers. But our last US tour showed us we are on the right path.
“In our mixtape today, we’ve included many special tracks, edits that we love and cherish, snippets of the upcoming album, and other exclusive surprises,” you say at the beginning of the mixtape. How was the creative process of putting it together? I guess you two live separately, how was it like working like that?
It was a bit weird to do the whole project from a distance over a month, but for once, we had a lot of downtime to exchange our impressions and opinions about the tape and make it right. We made a first version that we finally dropped, but picked some of our favorite parts to build the final version. The mix was built in a shared project, so we both had the time to go into it and fine-tune each other’s choice of tracks, transitions, etc.
The press release reads: “Artfully assimilating snippets of everything from bossa nova to Moroder-esque disco, crate-diggers Polo & Pan draw inspiration from bedfellows as unlikely as The Wizard of Oz and Italian Standards from the 1930, to the repertoire of French film composer Vladimir Cosma, ‘90s Disney classics and ‘70s Nepalese psych rock, all finessed with pitch-perfect French Touch instincts.” How do you find a balance between such a wide array of influences?
It’s in our DJ DNA. We met as selector DJs at Le Baron club in Paris back in 2010. The challenge was always to keep the mix entertaining by fusing music of different periods: the warmth of a 1950s sample against a modern beat sounds great to us. We both travelled a lot as DJs and always kept our ears open for new sounds to sample.
You’re launching this mixtape because you had to stop working on your second album, which you were in the middle of producing to release at some point this year. What can you tell us about this upcoming album? Are you still working on it from isolation, or are you waiting for a better time?
The album is going to be postponed until we know more about the situation as it develops. However, we have decided to release an EP in June to share some of our recent work before the LP releases. We thought it would be timely to release some tunes for the summer to share some much needed relief and joy in these stressful times. We are about to leave confinement spots to regroup in Paris to fine tune and mix the tracks at Les Studios Saint Germain.
Covid-19 has changed everyone’s lives – generally, for worse. How have you been living such weird times? What have you been up to and how has it affected?
France was hit pretty hard, everybody knows someone indirectly who has had Covid-19. It’s a tragic time for many of us. However, it’s also been a time to reconnect with our close family and take a break from our frantic 21st-century lifestyles. This unexpected time off the tour is actually probably going to turn out helping us make a better record. It’s been great to spend some time in the country and work here.
I feel your music is very summery; I totally think of good weather, long warm nights, outdoor festivals and this sort of generalized happiness that everyone feels in the summer when I hear your music. Unfortunately, Covid-19 seems to have shuttered that. But are you hopeful for the upcoming months?
We are very hopeful. We always have been. It’s a conscious decision in our music and in our life to try to look at the brighter side of life. We hope our music spreads a bit of that optimism too.