It’s often said that people are the beating heart of a city, a concept not lost on us over the past year, when many have fled urban centres and others have spent months confined in homes on their streets. But today, German label MCM and multi-hyphenate musician Pauli the PSM are bringing rhythm back to the pavements of Central London, with a genre-spanning dynamic performance at the label’s Mayfair flagship boutique, which also showcases a bespoke logo-splashed drum kit, developed for the occasion.
‘I’m encompassing all aspects of what I do as a performer’, says Pauli. ‘There’s a bit of dance and djing, with the epicentre being drumming.’ For the award-winning musician, drumming takes encompasses a form of therapy, a cathartic activity which evokes one of the earliest methods of connection and ‘how people communicated from village to village’, and even recalls the repeated rhythm of a mother’s heartbeat, when a baby is in the womb.
The first MCM bespoke drum kit
‘We all have rhythm,’ Pauli says. ‘Not necessarily structured in music, just in the way we walk and talk.’ I’m looking forward to tapping into that, and I hope people will feel that connection to the music, like a heartbeat.’
The MCM performance falls on the second weekend of loosened lockdown restrictions in the UK, a moment for many to enjoy retail and live music experiences, which have been sought after for so long. ‘I just want people to be lost in the moment,’ Pauli says. ‘We’ve all been living in a silo or isolation. I want people to feel that collective heartbeat.’
Adds Eric Erhardt, president of MCM EMEA: ‘Self-expression, movement and travel are intrinsic to the DNA of the MCM: brand, and after a year that saw the world be abruptly confined, we wished to celebrate the special vibrancy of London and the start of a return to in person experiences. ‘When looking to champion and capture the heart-beat of this amazing city, we wanted to connect with an artist who really embodies this energy.’
A collective sense of living is integral to Pauli’s newly released track I Got The Beat, an energetic ode to the musician’s home city of London and its melting pot of communities. ‘It’s one place where you can hear every language and every genre of music being played from cars,’ he says. ‘I’m excited to see different people standing side by side again. Communicating through a drumming heartbeat.’ §
