She’s got soul; she’s sexy as hell and her debut album sounds like Jamie Lidell producing Christina Aguilera if Xtina concentrated on busting out dope soulful jams.

Paris Wells’ Dat Du Dat

Paris Wells is Australia’s first credible female pop star in an age with her singalong modern soul and funk numbers on her debut album Keep It. With her songwriting partner RHyNO (True Live) on the boards and with members of The Bamboos all over it, this is an impressive record that runs deep. With Keep It it’s important to point out the Jamie Lidell influence. Lidell is the artist RHyNO (Ryan Ritchie) and Paris bonded over and Jamie Lidell’s modern twist on soul (along with Mark Ronson when he’s in form) is a guiding light musically on Keep It.
“[Jamie Lidell] was definitely our meeting point [for Paris and RHyNO],” says Paris. “I mentioned it the day I met Ryan and he was like ‘Whoah… like no girls know about that record. I think I like this girl’. I was just obsessed with Jamie Lidell. It might take someone contemporary sometimes to make you dig that little bit deeper.”
After supporting Justin Timberlake on his Australian and New Zealand tour, Paris gave Timberlake a Jamie Lidell CD as a thank you present. Paris and RHyNO have been working together for three years; Paris calls them Team Razz.
“Ryan expresses himself equally as much in this sonically as I do. If I made it on my own it wouldn’t sound dramatically different but it would definitely sound different and if he made it on his own it would be different. So its definitely a combined sound of our team - Team Razz, RHyNO and Pazz.”
Paris admits this album will surprise people. You really don’t expect to be slapped in the face with the banging funk of the first three tracks. From the funk rock of opener Shake to the classy deep pop of the next single Lonely to the infectious single Dat Du Dat – this is one hell of an opener, and from there this is an album with no fillers. It has been a patient Paris Wells that has let her sound develop.
“We did an artist development thing for a year just getting my sound right. The way I choose to present my sound and you should never rush that. Songs like Being Your Woman was one of the final songs made and so was Lonely. So, we came though with strong songs late just as much as we did first.”
Being Your Woman has hit and commercial radio smash written all over it; a contender for future single.
“The second single is going to be Lonely, so we’ll see how that goes and we’ve got a really amazing clip concept for that, which is another art which I just started doing which was so exciting I think its one of my favourite things making video clips. I can make them all day. The clip we’ve written up for Lonely is super exciting it depends I think it will cause a great amount of discussion, which is one of my favourite things.”
Why will the video cause discussion?
“I’m not telling. You’re going to have to wait.”
Don’t wait on grabbing Keep it. Paris Wells has recorded an album that will be the surprise smash of the year.
David Knight
Keep It is out on Illusive.