Paul James Nolan is not your average journeyman. A master of many trades—producer, mentor, audio engineer, and sound designer—Nolan’s name carries weight across the electronic underground. Whether sculpting sound for giants like Sasha and Junkie XL, or nurturing future talents like Massano and Four Candles via his ever-growing MYT platform, he’s carved a career that defies categorization.
Now based in Buenos Aires, James’ latest chapter unfolds with rekindled passion. In this wide-ranging conversation, Electronic Groove dives into the mind of a modern-day polymath, discussing the philosophy driving his teaching, psychedelics, the evolving role of AI in music, MYT, the inspiration behind his most recent release with Brent Lawson, and more.
EG: Hi Paul! Thank you for being here with us today. It’s a pleasure to catch up, especially to do so in your new home in Buenos Aires. How’s the experience treating you so far?
PJN: I was in LA from 2015 to 2017, and went back and forth between the US and England, and this experience here in Buenos Aires feels different. I feel like I’m setting up my future, essentially…you know? I’ve been here for a year, and I’m 45 now. So shit kind changes…time changes your perspective. But the good news is that Carl Jung is kinda right, life really starts after you’re 40. In both good and not-so-good ways.
EG: Well…speaking about Jung. From seeing your posts on social media and our conversations, one can immediately tell that you’ve taken an interest in the “human condition”, trying to really grasp our experience here and now. And not only that, but our interactions with psychedelics…
PJN: Oh, yeah. They have been a big part of my life, and still are. Although this past year, most of my “peak” experiences have been with MDMA. So it’s been a bit different, but the whole thing is still an inside job. Intention is everything. You’ve got to go into it with the right reverence and respect for it. Right? And also, the right reverence and respect for yourself. In that sense, to me, they are not to be fucked with…you know? I’ve seen countless people come with a lack of those, and it’s always them who end up with “bad trips”. Which, in all honesty, I don’t think that there’s such a thing. There are only challenges.
We shape the quality of our own experiences. So you can either be in power and deal with what will come with some form of serenity, or you can be out there forcing things, trying to make the square peg into the round hole.
EG: Going into the backstory of the artist…How did you get into DJing? What was it like when you got into it?
So, I had a friend who invested in probably the worst set of turntables to this day…they were a pair of Ariston turntables, which as you know, is a brand that is known to make fucking dishwashers and home appliances. The belt drive was terrible to begin with, but the worst part was that the pitch control was only like +2/-2, and it was this fucking dial. You just could NOT touch the platter. An absolute nightmare, but it was a great way to learn in the end. If you could mix on them, you could mix on anything. So, he went on holiday, and let me borrow them, and that was it. It just clicked. I always tell my students and friends that, if they can, learning to DJ with vinyl goes a long way in that sense.
In 1998, I went to university, and I was a part of the last intake of students under the old system, which meant I got money from the Government to attend. So, I got money for “books”, and by that, I mean my first set of Technics.
And also, that moment in time, 1993 to 1997…I’d say that was the pinnacle of it all, in terms of the culture or counterculture. Roni Size & Reprazent had won a Mercury Prize for their debut studio album ‘New Forms’; you had Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’; Faithless; UNKLE’s ‘Psyence Fiction’; ‘Fat Of The Land’ by The Prodigy, and Chemical Brothers’ ‘Dig Your Own Hole’…Which I probably rank as the greatest electronic album of all time.
EG: And how does MYT come about? When do you step into the role of a teacher? What was it that made you want to pursue a career where you uphold others?
PJN: MYT came about as a logical extension of my teaching work. I’ve been a teacher of music production since 2008, and simply put, it’s one of the things, alongside DJing and production, that I was put on this earth to do. After many years teaching in various establishments, private institutions, colleges, universities, etc, I went freelance as a 1:1 tutor, and after a few years, I started to get a little burned out and frustrated with the impact I was having.
I asked myself if there was a more efficient way to reach more people, build a community at scale, and yet, keep things intimate, as the more humanistic side of what I do as a developer of artistic talent has always been what I loved the most, and honestly, makes the most difference to an artist, their creative output and their lives.
In September 2019, I launched MYT as a community product with online courses, a supportive container to incubate the talent of tomorrow. We started strong in terms of numbers, and then, when the pandemic hit, numbers skyrocketed. I was full-time on MYT from that moment on, thankfully, and the worst set of circumstances actually created the conditions for me to rapidly build MYT as a business. We’ve just turned 5 and a half years old, and the success has been insane. It’s an amazing feeling to watch the artists we’ve developed in that time go and walk on their own, and when they’ve had as much success as the likes of Massano and Four Candles, I also feel that amazing vindication of our methods, perspectives, values, and approaches work. They REALLY work.
“[…] the more humanistic side of what I do as a developer of artistic talent has always been what I loved the most, and honestly, makes the most difference to an artist […]”
EG: In your opinion, as a teacher, how important is it to have meaning behind what we create?
PJN: I think it’s all about finding the correct balance. One of the things I’m most proud of is that not only do I have an association, but I also have a very strong friendship with my musical hero, Sasha. And I remember that we were working on one track in the ‘Scene Delete’ album, and I was just going in too deep, so I asked Sasha what it was that we were doing, what the track was about…and he just looked at me and said: “Oh, fuck you Paul. Just shut up and write it”. That, there and then, was a great lesson. It’s OK to just do it and find its meaning later. But I also know that you gotta put that work in, sooner or later. You can’t just keep calling your tracks “Tunnel”, or “Fragments”, or whatever you open your fucking dictionary to.
EG: How do you navigate all these technological advancements, like AI, with your students?
PJN: Well, the paramount question here is “how do I get the most out of ME?”. And the truth is that there are some great tools out there, like the ones used for stem separation, or to “suggest” similar samples. These, for example, enable me to sort of “reverse engineer” how some of the reference tracks that my students bring were made. So, if these things are empowering me as a teacher or as a creator…then, welcome. But, I’d say that the vast majority of the things AI has to offer, they don’t do that. As soon as they do the work FOR you, then…well, fuck that.
EG: Now, keeping in line with the “studio” chat…You’ve got your new EP out, ‘Ethereal Pulse’, a collaboration with Pro B Tech Music’s Brent Lawson, which also features remixes by Hernán Cattáneo & Mercurio, and Martin Gardoqui. Congratulations! How are you feeling about this one? How did it come about?
PJN: Brent is a dear friend and someone I’ve mentored on and off over the years. It’s been amazing to see the slow and steady rise of Pro B Tech Records over the last decade, and Brent is a top-notch example of consistency and doing it for the love.
The funny thing with ‘Ethereal Pulse’ is it was a track that we fucked around with for a couple of years, and we went back to the drawing board several times, without putting any expectation or pressure on it to be like “a thing”, you know?
When we finally nailed it last year and got the vibe we wanted, Brent suggested we send it to Hernán, and to our surprise, Hernán loved it so much he wanted to remix it, and boy, did he and Mercurio do a job on it. It’s one of the cleverest, most beautiful remixes I’ve heard, certainly on the tracks I’ve produced in years gone by. It’s got an amazing old school feel, and with how Hernán and Mercurio have twisted and repurposed some of the musical ideas from, say, a synth to a Rhodes piano, it gives me serious vibes of ‘Knights of The Jaguar’ aesthetically, but done in a very tasteful modern way. Epic.
EG: What would you consider a “successful” collaboration? What are some of the tips you give your students in this particular regard?
PJN: A successful collaboration is one where the people involved have complementary skill sets. If one of you is great at arranging and the other is better at sound design, then you have a match made in heaven. Successful collaboration is about learning from the process and each other, and in the end, that creates even better art, as nothing fuels inspiration more than seeing someone you are working with create in a way that fires something in you, and helps you round off your skillset. Think very carefully before you respond to the next “collab bro?” DM you get on Instagram. Haha!
“Successful collaboration is about learning from the process and each other, and in the end, that creates even better art […]”
EG: What’s next for Paul James Nolan? What can we expect from you and MYT in the coming months?
PJN: We have an insane amount of amazing music coming from our members on MYT’s record label, Emergent Properties, and some brilliant remixes. We’re increasingly bringing some of the bigger names in electronic music to the label as a way of highlighting the talent we’ve been incubating, so soon we have epic remixes coming from Gai Barone and Luca Abayan, and we’re working on some other big hitters.
I’m excited to re-release my album from a couple of years back, ‘Dissolve’. This is a project very close to my heart, an album that both expresses my own story, as well as helping people navigate psychedelic experiences. We’re releasing it on Emergent Properties, as well as a remix album with some amazing dance floor-based reinterpretations of these very ambient but intense tracks.
Outside of this, expect a lot more in the way of DJ gigs and tours, both inside of Argentina and internationally.
Paul James Nolan & Brent Lawson’s ‘Ethereal Pulse’ is out now via Pro B Tech Music, featuring remixes by Hérnan Cattáneo & Mercuio, and Martin Gardoqui. Purchase your copy here.
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