Late last year, Leo Pol, a producer and live performer from Paris, released his debut album on IILE, the vinyl label he founded in 2015 alongside his friend Jean-Baptiste Messier. Work on Be Mine, a nine-track record that features a collaboration with Bambounou, started a few years prior when Leo Pol, real name Léo-Pol Poirel, found himself indulging in Detroit electro. The tracks, which step away from his normal club-oriented house material, aim to tell a story through melancholic sounds, while also drawing influence from garage and jungle.

Though he began his journey in music by playing in punk bands, house and techno were a natural progression for Leo Pol. On his first day of high school, his “desk neighbor” handed him a CD with Ableton software. So he went home, installed it on his family’s computer, and started producing electronic music, aged 15. Soon he was posting his sketches on his Soundcloud and, in 2015, he put out his first proper hit, albeit anonymously, that featured “You Got the Funk,” a sumptuous house jam. The initial run sold out instantly, but it went viral the moment someone uploaded a video of “You Got the Funk” to YouTube. The track was eventually retraced to Leo Pol, and within months he was touring internationally. In the years since, Leo Pol has taken his hardware-only club sets across Europe, and put out a string of funky, groove-laden EPs on not only IILE but also D’Julz‘ Bass Culture Records and Mella Dee’s Warehouse Music, underlining his status as one of Paris’ most esteemed and consistent electronic music creators.

With his XLR8R podcast, recorded earlier this month, Leo Pol has delivered a new batch of timeless dance music, fresh from his Paris studio. Many of the punchier tracks, which you’ll hear towards the end and feature in his current live set, fall more in line with the album’s chill electro aesthetic, and the others come from a still-to-be-announced side-project of his. The aim of the mix, we’re told, is to underline the diversity in Leo Pol’s work and offer a taste for things to come in 2022, which is to say delicious deep house with the inimitable Leo Pol touch.

01. What have you been up to recently?

Recently I’ve been enjoying having more time to spend in the studio with a lot of canceled gigs due to the pandemic. It’s paramount to make the best of it and I have been working on new music basically every day.

02. What have you been listening to during lockdown?

I’m always quite steady in my listening habits but lately I’ve been listening to more warm and mellow sounds. Anything from Brazilian music to hip-hop. But I never say no to some good new wave or electronic music.

03. Tell us about your debut album: what can we all expect?

The album is really a piece to listen to at home, in your car or simply walking. It’s made up of more chill electro songs and projects that I’ve been collecting over a long period of time with the idea of making an album with a storyline.

04. What drives you to make electronic music?

Musical creation is a need for me. Until now, expressing myself has been mostly through machines and various analog gear. It’s been the most natural way to make music for me. I get up, have a cup of coffee or tea, and turn the machines on. I’d love to explore other realms, so why not make an album recorded in a more conventional fashion with exclusively instrumental recordings made using microphones?

05. When and where did you record this live set?

I recorded it in my home studio on January 12, 2022.

06. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included?

I chose a lot of tracks I’ve composed recently, in the weeks before recording the full thing. I used various genres of electronic music with different tempos and found a way to piece everything together that made sense for me. The punchier tracks, which you’ll find towards the end, are sounds that I’ve been playing in my live act lately, while the introduction songs come mostly from another project I’m working on that’s a bit more ’80s-oriented.

07. What can the listener expect?

A live act of my own productions with a lot of unreleased material. Something that sounds fresh to me and is a reflection of the spectrum of genres that I have been producing lately.

08. What’s on your horizon for 2022?

The horizon is super uncertain gig-wise with the pandemic but on the music production side a lot of new projects are on the way. I’m also experimenting with different mediums. I’ll be excited to share them when they’re ready!

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel to listen offline, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R+ member, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Editor’s note: there is no tracklisting for this mix as it is a live set.