Paul EP
Southampton
Striking the perfect balance of DJ, Producer and Promoter and often fusing all three of those talents perfectly and flawlessly, Paul EP is presently one of the South Coast of the UK's hottest properties. Having always loved the wide spread of the harder, more underground styles, Paul was always an avid collector of the rave sound from as far back as his teens. Admiring the likes of the very legends that help build the rave scene in the first place such as Ramos, Hixxy, Supreme, Brisk, Stu Allen, Force & Styles and UFO, Paul's passion for a party and hefty collection of a tape pack or twenty gave him a long standing aspiration to create, perform and promote the very music he loved.
His first rave experiences however would be what aided the encouragement and fast developing taste for wanting to become a main stage artist himself, visiting events such as North's Radical Technology following harder artists such as Jay Prescott, Scorpio, Producer, HMS and Dolphin and getting immersed in the faster, more furious sounds of hardcore techno in Crewe. The legendary Sanctuary in Milton Keynes would follow and regular visits there opened Paul's eyes to a much larger World, providing him with opportunities to see all of his heroes live.
It was during this time of discovering headliners and experiencing all things fantastic about rave that Paul knew for certain it was where he wanted to carve out his own career path.
Spending days, weeks and months furiously collecting records and studying the sound and styles and mastering any and every form of beat matching, turntablism and roof raising mixing ability; pushing himself until he got it right, Paul quickly attained a reputation for starting the party with friends, smashing out sets at house parties, outdoor raves, small club and pub events and anywhere he could get himself heard. Playing a cross section of harder sounds from hard dance, to hard trance, hardstyle and hardcore, Paul's versatility in musical choice and style meant he was noticed by a number of audiences and in particular, artists and promoters.
Shortly after that Paul entered the Hardcore Heaven Weekender and came second place, however irrespective of position, an important turning point to come out of such a time honoured occasion was his being noticed by headlining artists and international UK hardcore royalty Ramos, Supreme and MC's Marley and Knight. Swiftly making friends with the UK rave scene pioneers, Paul worked hard to continue on his ascension through the hardcore ranks, one party at a time.
Quickly making friends throughout his native South Coast and through a solid close friendship with the teachings of MC Knight, Paul would soon build a name for himself as an artist that not only built the hype in any given room he was playing in, but also bring a crowd, something that would later give him the taste for promotion.
It wouldn't take long at all for Paul to start rapidly building an impressive list of stages upon which he'd played upon either, with his reputation for bringing the party and playing a broad range building rapidly by the month, Paul would soon starting appearing on the line up of every major player in the game.
To be taken seriously though on a much larger level and to attain longevity and in order to truly make his mark as an artist, Paul would soon have to produce his own material. Having already started to note down ideas for music and songs of his own design, Paul started learning from and built a relationship with another one of his rave idols and now great friends, Ufology mastermind and a key member of the original Raver Baby movement, UFO.
Through UFO's teachings and master craftsmanship as an engineer and Paul's swift learning abilities and creative input in terms of helping to write and build an anthem soon to be followed by a sharp technical production ability; Paul would then go on to create some game changing anthems.
The first of this legion of soon to be heavy hits was the vocally powerful 'All I Wanna Do', with vocals by Becci, the track was an instant hit, immediately signed to Supreme's THC Records label and released on 12" and digital. The track became a smash seller, topping many underground dance charts and was even remixed by international hardcore headliner Hixxy and was featured on the three CD compilation album True Hardcore 2 as part of Supreme and UFO's mix CD.
Paul would follow this glorious debut up, again re-teaming with sensational vocalist Becci, on their second smash anthem 'Walk On Water'. This time around it would be Hixxy that did the signing duties, picking the track up for sale and distribution through his Raver Baby label; he later remixed the track and it featured prominently on the chart smashing three CD compilation album Clubland X-Treme Hardcore 5 fully launching Paul into the main stage limelight.
This would be a quite literal action, as with two of the then biggest hardcore sing along vocal anthems of the time doing the rounds to big numbers and scores of fans, Paul and Becci started to show for live PA's of the track at many massive events UK wide, this would of course be accompanied by a DJ set from Paul, that would give him the opportunity to showcase some of the other productions he had been working on in the studio with both UFO and breathtaking breakthrough talent MOB. Together they would craft such huge tracks as 'Dreamed a Dream', 'Are You An Angel', 'Deeper', 'Skydive', 'Synathasia', 'Let Me Tell You', 'Thunder In Our Rave', 'The Shizzle' and 'Real'.
What followed as a direct result would be an armoury of hardcore weapons helping Paul build a set that would see him be booked again and again by some of the scenes most powerful players including Raverbaby, HTID, Hardcore Heaven, Slammin Vinyl, Uproar, HTID In The Sun, Fusion, Contact, Resonate, Electric, +12, THC, Experi-mental, Strictly Come Raving, Secret Society, High Velocity, Asylum and many, many more.
From here Paul took the leap into promotion, creating his own following had meant he had confidence in pulling off his own event, after all, both record sales and booking clearly showed the work he was doing was in demand, so the natural course was to create what would become one of the South Coast's biggest events, Carry On Ravin.
Matching the perfect blend of the hardest hitting headliners with the very best breakthroughs the local scene has to offer, Carry On Ravin has all the elements of Paul's favourite events, delivered in his own unique style, one that worked so well as a format so far, that the event is still hugely popular to this day and continues to rage on at it's current home of Portsmouth's best underground venue, The Barn, of which Paul is now a regular as an artist for many events at the venue.
Now taking on his own brand new label concept, the incredible No Retreat, No Surrender Records, Paul already has thirteen releases already lined up for the label's launch, offering him both his own platform for new music and encouraging exciting, fresh and thought provoking talent a way up the ladder; No Retreat, No Surrender will also act as the platform for Paul's debut artist album, which is currently in production with UFO. There are also a series of very different and exciting No Retreat, No Surrender events in the pipeline meaning 2014 is going to be a very exciting year for Paul EP indeed.
With a truly enthralling journey both in his wake and yet to come, Paul, like his label namesake is relentless, no giving up, no going back, just more powerhouse UK hardcore singles, electrifying DJ performances and block busting atmosphere fuelled events that just keep coming and thus underlining - Paul EP isn't going anywhere yet, why, in fact, he's just getting started...
Jon Brown, November 2013
Paul EP / NRNS Records’s tracks
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