Landcruisin'

On 21 March 2016, Pitchfork Media reported that Jai and A.K. Paul had created the Paul Institute. Although the nature of this project was not disclosed at the time, a press release revealed that it is a collaboration between the brothers, and artist Muz Azar, with the intent of also potentially introducing other artists.^[8][13] Devoid of information, its website prompted visitors to provide their country and telephone number in order to receive a passcode which granted access to updates.^[14][15] DIY writer Tom Connick commented on the attention the project captured saying: "With little effort and even less output, Jai and A.K. Paul quickly built up the kind of mystique thousands of bedroom producers and their pricey publicists would kill for.^[10] Zane Lowe premiered "Landcruisin'" three days later on his Beats 1 radio programme, where it was played three consecutive times; he described it as "Blade Runner pop".^[16][17] The song was made available that day for Paul Institute members through digital download and streaming, while public SoundCloud and iTunes releases were enabled on 25 March.^[10][16][18] A limited-edition, autographed 7" vinyl record, exclusive to registered users of the Paul Institute, was also released.^[19]

"Landcruisin'" garnered mostly positive reviews from music critics. Pitchfork Media's Marc Hogan opined that the song "both lives up to the expectations and sidesteps them", writing: "With a sound like this, why stay on land?"^[6] Similarly, Collin Brennan, of Consequence of Sound, said it was "totally worth all the buzz", and Stereogum writer James Rettig dubbed the track: "more than good enough on its own, an enticing and theatrical piece of futuristic pop music".^[7][17] Fact published a review of "Landcruisin'", to which five journalists contributed with commentary, and their score out of 10 points. Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy and Tayyab Amin awarded it a rating of 9 – the latter deemed it "wonderfully complete", whereas Montesinos-Donaghy stated: "[it] has a Technicolour ambition held within its blog-cycle frame, and Paul sounds as eager as possible to outgrow his frame as soon as possible."^[11] Aurora Mitchell of the same publication explained her score of 8 by saying she was "definitely here for it". With respective ratings of 5 and 6, Chris Kelly and Son Raw were more critical of the song – both negatively compared A.K. Paul's artistry to that of Jai, as Kelly called the single "fun but forgettable" and Raw quipped: "this is not the Paul you are looking for, move along."^[11] It entered the Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists chart on the week ending 9 April 2016, at number 12.^[20]