Today, the French duo PAPOOZ released their newest track “Down By You”, co-produced and mixed by Patrick Wimberly (MGMT, Lil Yachty, Joji, Chairlift) alongside a video snippet which is part of the still-to-be-announced bigger short film, shot by artist / director Moodoïd.
PAPOOZ’s Ulysse Cottin and Armand Penicaut share more about “Down By You” here: “This is one of the first songs we recorded at Jesse’s studio in NYC, just a couple of months after we started working with him in Paris last year. It's a teenage love song about a couple of kids misbehaving in the city. I remember we didn’t want to make it clear if they are romantically attached to each other or not.
We wanted to capture that youthful feeling of running around town with a friend, breaking beer bottles, shoplifting candies, making out, running away from the police and all that 50’s adolescent imagery that you can see in movies like American Graffiti or Rebel without a cause.
Musically there’s a bossa-novesque mood in the verses, mainly due to the jazz chords we used, and it becomes way more doo-wop when the chorus kicks in. You have to imagine Kings of Convenience having a hot date with Dion & the Belmonts.”
Earlier, the duo released “Resonate”, co-produced and mixed by Patrick Wimberly and co-written with Jesse Harris as well. PAPOOZ have a talent for sway pop and irrefutable groove like very few of their compatriots, aside from Phoenix and L’Impératrice, we cannot think of anyone else. Having toured America two times to sold out venues such as LA’s The Lodge, NY’s Elsewhere for instance, the 5-piece live band is getting ready to bring the new sounds over again. Tropical pop here, wild bossa nova there, all of it deeply anchored in the American style of the Seventies, Ulysse and Armand are perfectly matched. Falsely dabbler and completely inspired, the duo fights the ambient gloom with their songs.
Their cheerful and addictive tunes lay the foundations for the four-handed songwriting style of Ulysse (brown hair) and Armand (blond hair). Those two performers, who compose and sing effortlessly in English, posed with a cheerful attitude on the sleeve of their albums None Of This Matters Now (2022), Night Sketches (2019) their debut album Green Juice (2016), which was recorded at the Cap Ferret and mixed by Ash Workman (Metronomy, Baxter Dury etc) and their debut PAPOOZ EP (2015).
If one like to imagine an upcoming The White Lotus summer soundtrack, set in Greece mixed with a French Riviera spirit, listen to “Ann Wants To Dance” (directed by Soko, 10M views) to start your PAPOOZ-filled journey from there.
PAPOOZ “Down By You” lyrics:
Sunday morning lying on the grass
Down by you
Neither in the future or the past
Down by you
Don’t care if I’m wasting time
Watching all the clouds roll by
For a while
Hanging like we own the streets
You and I
Dancing to a distant beat
Living high
Racing in the summer heat
Right on!
For a while
Staying till they make us move
You and I
Even if they disapprove
Living high
That something that we’ll never lose
Right on!
Never leaving till the sun is gone
Down by you
Stillness even feels like moving on
Down by you
Don’t care if I’m wasting time
Careless as a butterfly
For a while
Hanging like we own the streets
You and I
Dancing to a distant beat
Living high
Racing in the summer heat
Right on!
For a while
Staying till they make us move
You and I
Even if they disapprove
Living high
That something that we’ll never lose
Right on!