There’s been a French resistance of sorts in the dance music world recently. Wherever you go, you’re bound to hear a track from names such as Justice, Uffie, Feadz and Surkin. It’s like the French decided that they would have a monopoly on all things electro, and now the sound is synonymous with the land of the Eiffel Tower, snails and frogs legs. One man who was there at the start of it all was Para One. Born Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, Para One started out taking a different musical route, trying his hand as MCing under the name Paradoxal H, before taking an active role in producing for hip hop group T.T.C. Like the twisted mind of his French counterpart Mr. Oizo, he also studied film, directing a handful of shorts and composing the score to Céline Sciamma’s Naissance Des Pieuvres. Fast forward to now, and he’s just released his debut solo album Epiphanie.

Kicking off with Piste Bleue, a simple electro pop ditty complete with catchy synthesised beat, it’s a familiar sound that his contemporaries have mastered. Like all French dance music producers, there is bound to be some sort of comparison to Daft Punk, and on Turtle Trouble and Midnight Swim, Para One makes that comparison quite worthy. But rather than make a straight out electro album, he combines a lot of other musical influences. F.U.D.G.E seems to have an almost Asian influence to it, while the rap group he produced for, T.T.C, make an appearance on the tough Musclor. Here, he slows down the beat, which acts rather as a backing than as the main attraction.

The current dance floor hit doing the rounds right now is Dudun-Dun, with its synth-driven thumping techno beat. It’s a hard track to ignore, and is sure to be heating up the dance floor just in time for the Australian summer. Def Tea Machine has a subtle Jamaican backing beat, while Les Soleils Artificiels is used as a sort of soft interlude. Sages-Femmes starts off a little slow, but then starts to sound like it was hacked and sliced after an alcoholic bender, and Liege is basically five minutes of the same sound looped and altered slightly every few seconds. Clubhoppn brings the energy back up, with the synth going into overdrive.

Not everything Para One has touched on this album has turned to gold, as evidenced by a few dud tracks scattered throughout, but he’s done a pretty good job at expanding the electro sound France is known for. Thankfully his ear for music, for the time being at least, will keep him from being pigeonholed as simply a French electro artist.