Paris Lounge

I became an instant fan of Paris Lounge years ago when my partner at the time was playing this in the background. He had purchased it while he was in Paris a few months prior and the first track 'Hum Hum' starting off with this telephone conversation between this man and woman. The vocals sound completely retro while she is trying to describe to him what she thinks he looks like by the sound of his voice. She comes to the conclusion he is about 6 feet tall, 155 lbs and light brown hair. You need to listen to the rest of the song to find out what else she asserts.... How fitting that the artist that created the song is called 'The Troublemakers'. I have heard several other tracks by them and love them all.

With all the hype about French house, the equally brilliant but less frenetic hip hop and chill out music being produced in the country has been somewhat overlooked. This compilation fixes things pretty wonderfully, as it includes stand out tracks from both the uptempo and downtempo genres divided into two discs - Paris by day and Paris by night. There are names here you'll recognise (DJ Cam, a very, very old St. Germain track that's already been collected elsewhere) but the really excellent stuff comes from less known names like Llorca and Sporto Kantes.

So what's it like? The Paris by day disc starts off gently, with some beautiful slow funk from Llorca (in a similar vein to Massive Attack's "Lately"). It gradually builds the pace through songs from vintage chanteuse Jeanne Moreau (for that true French flavour), trip-hop tracks from Le Tone (using the same Billie Holiday vocal Alex Gopher sampled in "The Child") and Cam, before finishing with some excellent Dmitri-style kitsch from Czerinsky.
The Paris by night disk takes this formula (a bit of kitsch, a bit of jazz and some Latin flavour) and moves it up in tempo, and by the time you reach Playin' 4 the City about a third of the way in, you'll think it's Saturday night in Favela Chic on Rue Oberkampf - it's impossible not to enjoy!
This compilation includes both retro and modern stuff, so it's an accurate sampler for the city itself - and if you love Paris, you'll love this too.