Polo & Pan – Charanga

Carrossel Do Tempo, autumn 2023: brass, kids’ choir, dancefloor

In October 2023, French duo Polo & Pan – Paul Armand-Delille and Alexandre Grynszpan – released Charanga as a single (5 October) and as track three on the Carrossel Do Tempo EP (6 October). The collaborators are credited clearly: Les Poppys, the French children’s choir known since the early 1970s, and Isaac et Nora. The label chain is Hamburger Records / Ekler, distributed by Virgin Music France. The EP also holds Carrossel Do Tempo (with Abrão), Chamallow, and Nagori.

Polo & Pan built their name on bright, sample-rich dance music that borrows from French variety, tropical rhythms, and film-like melodies – from the 2014 Dorothy EP through Caravelle and later albums. Charanga fits that lane: a mid-tempo dance pulse around 119 BPM, brass and percussion hints in the title’s Cuban sense of a festive band, and group vocals that sound like a street party rather than a club whisper.

Les Poppys bring the high, clear choir tone French listeners already associate with nostalgia and playground energy. Isaac et Nora add another vocal colour. Underneath, Polo & Pan keep the drums simple and the bass warm so the chant can sit on top without clutter. The lyric calls out to pull out the charanga and pachanga – dance language aimed at bodies in a room, not at headphones alone. The mix leaves space between percussion hits so the choir can punch through a festival PA.

By late 2023 the duo were deep into a run of colourful EPs and singles between albums, treating the dancefloor as a place for guests and jokes as much as for long mixes. Putting a historic French children’s choir on a Latin-titled electronic track is typical of their humour: familiar voices in an unexpected room.