It’s been a good fifteen years now since Vitalic (aka Pascal Arbez-Nicolas) took it upon himself to redefine techno using his native French sensibility, mixing energy and melody to forge his own recognisable style. Many of those tunes, like “Poney”, “La Rock 01”, went on to become club classics, my personal favourite being The Past. His music fuses techno, disco, rock and pop with a ‘French touch’ to find something a little more refreshing than filtered disco house.
Since his first album, “OK Cowboy” in 2005 Vitalic has constantly tried to reinvent himself, pushing his idea and vision of disco to the extreme. This constant renewal is no doubt where the producer finds his strength, exploring every facet (like a disco ball), the myriad possibilities of what he calls metal disco, or more prosaically “disco-poilue” – fuzzy disco.
For “Voyager”, his fourth studio album composed over the course of two years. Both the name and sublimely retro-futuristic artwork of “Voyager” clearly announce the direction Vitalic has taken, this is a cosmic space odyssey, packed with energy-filled retro-futuristic hits perfect for dancing in zero gravity.
The first single “Waiting For The Stars” – featuring David Shaw is an irresistible disco-pop hit with gimmicks à la “Funky Town” – to “Levitation”, a veritable turbine punctuated by screams from the crowd as only Vitalic knows how, to “Eternity”, a sort of synthetic opera or contemporary hybrid of Wim Mertens and Klaus Nomi.
