Young Paul
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Young Paul

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"It Must Be Love"

t Must Be Love.
Young Paul, live., Supporting Goodbooks, at the Lexington in Angel.

Monday April 6th, 2009 1:22 pm

Intra-band love is always a joy to behold. Ike and Tina. The Carpenters. The usual mechanics of musicians performing with each other is converted by the mind’s gossip-gland into a lusty, passionate romp-and-roll across the futon of musical possibilities.
Omer and Carole are in love. He stands and strums. She wiggles and sings and fingers the synth. Then they glance at one another. The laptop likes to watch. And later, after the show, we presume they go and make love, while listening to themselves on an iPod dock adorned with discarded undergarments.
And it’s good to see (I mean the first bit). They are both partial to a sincere wail of yearning. Hers is coquettish, with eyelash-fluttering pitch-bends as she writhes about. His is a growly shout, like a horny panther who’s waited too long. With a few costume-changes and a bit of a plot, you could easily make an opera out of this pair.
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An alt-electro opera, that is. Influences are not hidden here. It’s an overt celebration of the dark furrows of the 80s synth-twiddling scene (think of early Tears For Fears and Depeche Mode), filtered through some more recent song-screwdriving a la dEUS or the Dresden Dolls. Each song develops artfully, with peaks and troughs on each spectrum. The gentle sultry singing over bowow basslines accumulates percussive taps, then hi-hats, then a catchy chorus, then synth arpeggios, things dropping in and out all over the shop. Their cover of Paul Young’s Stay For Good This Time (that’s right, Young Paul do a Paul Young song) is beautiful. They’ve changed the chorus melody into a sinister evocation of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and it works scarily well. Carole takes over for a lovely, bloody song called Mock Kiss, which has a Sneaker Pimps kind of hateful independence feel to it. Majore is a strange tune that grumbles and growls and eventually turns into a faintly-Ibiza dancefloor heave. There’s nothing background about any of this. It’s a work of communication, not just mood-providing. And some of it is really dry and intense – you’re either hypnotically staring into the abyss on a neuromantic vampire trip, or you’re a townie with a puzzled look on your face, muttering “eh?” and “what?” and “piss off!”.
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What I really enjoyed about seeing Young Paul was that lack of compromise. They’ve found their darkly pop, crowd-dividing identity, they really mean it, and they’re sticking with it. Young Paul is a brilliant toxic shock of sci-fi future TOTP, delivered playfully and integrally by two young lovers. Surrender yourself. - Ameleia's Magazine-http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/music/intraband-love-is-always-a/2009/04/06/


"Applicants/Young Paul at the Metro"


I enter the Metro with mixed emotions. It’s the first gig of a brand new year and I’m looking forward to it. However, due to the Cross Rail train project, this venue will close for ever next week and London will have lost one of the better small places where bands can play in the Capital.

I have been coming here for years and have seen the likes of Kaito, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Soledad Brothers, The Kills, Mika Bomb, Rogers Sisters, and many others. The Metro is tiny, intimate, atmospheric- the real embodiment of that which is sometimes dismissively referred to as the ‘toilet circuit’, but is really the bread and butter of live performance, giving new bands the opportunity to hone their skills in front of a paying audience. It is vibrant, urgent and necessary.


Or like tonight in the first working week of January, largely deserted.

As I don’t believe there is mileage in knocking up and coming bands, I shall skirt over The Blind Hearts and merely say that they don’t appeal to me much. Fans of The Verve, and Richard Ashcroft in particular, may find something more to their taste.

Much more my cup of poison is Young Paul. This is a duo of guitarist Omer, resplendent in white suit and permed hair flopping over his face and Carole, who has a huge voice and a small keyboard.

Despite being bedevilled for much of their set by poor sound (I am no more than ten feet away and have to crane forward to properly hear them) it is clear that these two are onto something. There are proper songs here, and an impressive chemistry between the two performers.

Omer sings quietly and plays groovy dance licks, Carole undulates and roars out the numbers like a she-demon. The music is insidiously catchy, the mood is warm and a general bonhomie prevails. If it wasn’t so stubbornly attached, I would have danced my ass off. Track ‘Breaking and Entering’ is a stormer. Young Paul are well worth keeping an eye on.

The final band of the evening is the Applicants and right from the start it is clear that we are going to be in for a good time. For starters, most of the band is spattered in fake blood and wearing distressed clothing that makes them look like passengers from the Titanic just after the iceberg arrived.

They charge off with all guns blazing right from the start, and before the end of the first song singer/guitarist Fidel Villeneuve is off the stage and playing his instrument with his teeth. Musically, they are the closest thing I have seen to the Rezillos since, well, The Rezillos.

This is good time rama-a-lama garage punk with a smile on its face and its heart full of mischief.
The queen of misrule is bouncing bundle of energy Jeff, a perpetually grinning and prancing anarchic presence on stage and amongst the audience. She’s fuelled in equal parts by the sheer joy of performing and copious swigs of Red Stripe.

The whole of the Applicants’ set passes in a whirl of candy coloured fun. It doesn’t matter that some songs have to be curtailed because the guitarist has broken all his strings or has become entangled in his microphone cable, nor that Jeff spends some time sat on top of the drummer, somewhat cramping his ability to play.

The audience gets to participate too. Having seen a colleague mauled and flattened by a careening Jeff, I find a microphone thrust into my face with an invitation to bawl along to the song ‘Evelyn Waugh’. I bellow lustily, despite not knowing any of the words.

And then the tumult stops and all is quiet. It has been an exhilarating final performance and an absolutely fitting way to bring in the New Year and say goodbye to a great venue. - http://callofthewyld.blogspot.com/2009/01/applicants-young-paul-at-metro-812009.html


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Our duo is the story of two immigrants who arrived in London searching for the vibrant music scene it is known for. After both being in Rock bands, we've decided we want to do something different. Influenced by both the Alternative Rock scene of the past 20 years and our childhood memories of sweet synth pop, We set with our computers, synths and guitars and concocted our blend till it was just right and then took it to the stages of London, where it was accepted with both head-banging heads and tapping feet. Young Paul has carved itself a niche, setting themselves apart from alternative bands by being more Pop and Electronica and at the same time keeping themselves a little on the left of Electro bands with a more precise and meticulous song-writing