Par-Le 2015 The Light Years Digital Album Cover
Listen to the music of British duo Par-le, and one quickly learns a lesson: the boogie-funk of the early 80s never truly died--it just jumped across the pond. Bassist Alex Bonfanti and Miles James have played together for years, but are finally releasing music together in earnest through startup soul label Movement Records. Between the two of them, their collaboration credits include names like Flying Lotus, Jose James and Michael Kiwanuka (James is Kiwanuka's touring guitarist). Now, Par-le has dropped their new single "Kamden Town," and it's got more funk than your body can likely handle.
A clear nod to the vocoder-and-synth funk of groups like The Whispers and D-Train, "Kamden Town" starts on smoky terms and never stops building, its handclaps and clever key changes falling in all the right places. It's the glare of a Manhattan street lit by neon; a wisp of smoke that fades to reveal the set of eyes you've been searching for all night. This is on-message boogie music the likes the world hasn't heard for decades.
Okayplayer premiered Par-le's last single, "Exclusive," and spoke at length with Bonfanti and James about their influences and what keeps them driven as funk purveyors. “Miles and I, the reason we started working together in the first place, it’s that funk and boogie like this really doesn’t exist anymore," Bonfanti said back then. “No one in the UK has really done that, and we took to it quite comfortably.” The feeling here, though, is quite comfortable indeed. Listen to "Kamden Town" below and get set for a transportive experience.
