For almost a decade, veterans of Paris’s night life convened at the club Le Baron. As if guided by the motto “Too weird to live, too rare to die,” their instincts led them to the club’s red velveteen couches, and they gave it their all on the dance floor until sunrise. It was a place where only the ordinary was improbable. And it was there, in that cradle of wonders, that the d.j.s Polocorp and Peter Pan first met.
I came across the music of Paul Armand-Delille and Alexandre Grynszpan, now known as Polo & Pan, a few years after the duo began to collaborate, in 2013. Since then, they have released three EPs and an album together. Their songs are funky but suave, uniquely fun, and evoke a fantasy of European night life. Key influences include LCD Soundsystem and Claude Debussy—a combination that may, at first, seem peculiar, until one realizes how it aligns perfectly with Polo & Pan’s crisp sense of silence. “Pausing for a second brings joy back into the music,” Armand-Delille told me, last spring. “It’s audacious.” “Music must age well,” Grynszpan added. “After all, time is the best and only judge.”
Their début album, “Caravelle,” from 2017, was conceived as a voyage across blissful destinations. Close your eyes on “Zoom Zoom” and it’s 1964, somewhere near Ipanema; close them again and travel to the rainforests of Cameroon with “Bakara.” Though most of the duo’s lyrics are in French, many of their songs are infused with vintage samples and exotic instruments, including Pygmy flutes—a blend that invites both surprise and enchantment.
Earlier this year, when I asked Armand-Delille and Grynszpan how they felt about launching their tour in New York, Grynszpan gave me a response that was both typically French and remarkably candid. “Ça fait rêver,” he said—“It makes one dream.” That night, as their concert reached its climax, I couldn’t help but notice that their music had the same effect on the audience. Lucky for us, they’re back in the city on Wednesday, December 5th.
