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Music

Scrapbook: Pr0files Flips Through Their Old Photo Albums

DJing your own high school dance, amazing yearbook pix, and much more.

Clichés exist because they’re generally true. A picture really is worth a thousand words, and all that glitters is not gold. My mom’s sequin party dress definitely glistens, and that shit was straight of the sale rack at Forever 21. LA-based duo PR0FILES manage to avoid such truisms by writing about less omnipresent subjects like sex addiction and hypnotism, making music that a young and spiritual Tiger Woods or Russell Brand would creepily drool over (“Hey, I’m fucked up too!” – Charlie Sheen). Their brand of “sad-happy” synth-pop is ridiculously compelling, which is why we premiered their track “Empty Hands” last year, just when they were getting hot on the Interweb. To celebrate the release of their debut album Jurassic Technologie, we wanted to talk to Lauren Pardini and Danny Sternbaum about their inspirations, creative process, and existential thoughts about why we were put on this earth, and what music means. But then we remembered that the two are really super fuego good lucking, so instead we asked them to send us some pictures of themselves to ogle over, highlighting some of their fashion wins and fails, as well as what music they were jamming to at the time. If a picture really is worth that much, then this is a novella about Fashion with a capital F. Take a stroll down memory lane with PR0FILES below, and feel free to soundtrack it with their debut album.

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Lauren: Straight out of American Horror Story. My poor parents. I remember coming home from a fair with face-painting and couldn’t wait to play the piano. My mom wanted me to take the make-up off and I refused. At that time I was listening to a lot of Mozart. That’s not cool when you’re a kid. I’d give anything to get those 2 feet long pigtails going again though. Lauren: I took my brother's bike and rode around in circles on our driveway thinking I was pretty badass. Those gloves had patterns appear if the temp got cold enough. Mine had hearts on them. I probably wore them in the summer too I loved them so much. Somehow I managed to get a ballet plié going on the seat of the bike too.

Lauren: Somehow I coerced my high school into letting me DJ our dance and I thought it would be smart to have a disco theme as if anyone cared about that but me. I wore a leopard ascot with orange trim and blush to match and am making quite a face in this photo. It’s hard to tell but that top is all white sequins. My hair and eyebrows are out of control as usual. I actually revisited that top at my birthday show last year! youcan see in bottom pic but I swapped the ascot for glow bracelets. Danny: This is the first picture I thought of when I started getting these photos together. I looked this way pretty much up until I was 7 years old, big ears and curly hair. My ears now finally fit my head and I've since figured out how to manage that hair. This picture also probably explains why the smell of a freshly painted room is so nostalgic for me.

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Danny: Really loved my sense of style back then, not sure what happened (see following photo). This is from a photo series my best friend at the time and I took of each other with a polaroid camera we found while rummaging through my closet. Things got pretty wild that day and I ended up getting the tip of a pencil stuck in my leg. Still have that gray dot on my calf to remind me to watch out for sharp pencils layingaround.

Danny: Quintessential 90s elementary school yearbook photo. I doubt I was aware at the time how well I had the smug poet/intellectual look nailed down. This was the beginning of my romantic phase. I found this photo hidden away in a shoebox full of notes and love letters I saved from middle school and high school. It's so perfect that I kept this in a box filled with seemingly endless amounts of bad poems I had written for girls I had crushes on.

Danny: When I was 12 my mom and I travelled to Paris to visit family. I was listening to a lot of STP, Smashing Pumpkins, and Marilyn Manson at the time. I think this was at the start of my skater phase, which lasted up until I was 16 or so. I've got on my Doc Martens, JNCO khakis, oversized leather jacket (which I sort of wish I still had), and it's hard to see, but I had just gotten my ear pierced. I was pretty excited that my cousins would think I looked "edgy." Also, it's pretty amazing that there doesn't seem to be anyone else around at The Louvre that day.

Danny: It took a while, but I finally got some eyebrows. All kidding aside, this was a pretty cool moment for me because it's from when I played CBGB's with my band in high school. We were pretty terrible, but we somehow convinced the booker that we could bring enough people to our show. It's also worth mentioning that my friends and I almost got arrested later that night after getting caught jumping the turnstiles in the NYC subway. I've learned my lesson.

Danny: Lauren actually took this photo of me when we went to Coachella a few years ago. Clearly, I did not want to miss the party so I slept with my phone and sunglasses in hand. We ended up watching Justice from the side stage that night which is definitely one of my favorite memories of that weekend.