Paramida

Panorama Bar resident, Love On The Rocks label boss and one of dance music’s most in-demand DJs, producers and remixers, PARAMIDA returns to her own imprint with ‘Devil’s Destination,’ her first EP in 3 years. Set for release on 9th May, it features two brand new solo tracks, a collaborative re-interpretation of a rare 2000s tech house classic with E-Talking, and a remix by the legendary Mathew Jonson.

PARAMIDA’s reputation as a digger and student of dance music is translated here into an EP that showcases her unique and interdisciplinary approach to production, curation and DJing, threading the needle in a way that pays tribute to the past, locates itself in the present, and pushes forward into a new and exciting future – the hallmark of her label, described by Groove magazine as “one of the best house labels of the decade”.

The EP opens with its title track, and wastes none of its 8-minute runtime getting to the point: a huge, enveloping bassline (courtesy of 90s progressive trance producer Musique de Marque), to the effect of instant chills. If Love On The Rocks releases can be defined by certain characteristics, one of them is undoubtedly the presence of big emotional hits. PARAMIDA wants her listeners to feel something, with the full impact of emotions that can only truly be felt on a dance floor. A swirl of vocal samples and hi-hats precede it, before it drops directly into a thumping percussive workout replete with huge kicks, dubby bleeps and rewinds. Calling back to the cross-pollinated sound of 90's house, breakbeat and rave to devastating effect, she punctuates segments of jump-up energy with pauses that propel the listener right back into the feels, before unleashing a groove as introspective and melancholy as it is connective and ecstatic.

The EP continues with ‘On Process’ – a collaboration with E-Talking and re-interpretation of ‘Incidental Beats’ by Jean Marie K and People On Process, a French deep/tech house release on Megaphone Records from 2002. Here, the two show their skill at identifying and reworking obscure gems and influential classics whilst paying respectful tribute to them (as demonstrated on their update to Anja Schneider and Sebo K’s ‘Rancho Relaxo’ from 2024.) Lifting the disco-leaning percussion and bassline of the original, along with its contrasting dub techno/tech-house pads and synth lines, they blend the components into a gentle, endlessly progressing dreamscape that shifts effortlessly between diverse genre lines.

This sets the stage for a stunning interpretation by the massively influential Mathew Jonson, who leans into the dubby tech-house of it all. Over 8 minutes of detailed and pristine drum programming and insistent forward motion, he effortlessly connects elements of minimal, electro and tech house, layering moody twists and turns that situate the remix pitch-perfectly on an EP that surprises in both its daring and its subtlety.

‘Devil’s Destination’ closes with ‘Sayonara’, a two-and-a-half minute beatless coda, which calls back to PARAMIDA’s predilection for ambient and dream house, previously explored on ’33’ from her 2022 EP ‘Moonrise VII’. It’s a patchwork of vocal samples, reverb, delay, pads, and a proto-house bassline sitting in a soft universe between dreaming and consciousness; perhaps, a glimpse into the mind of its maker.

In short: Essential.