Absolutely Vital: Vitalic

Aside from the latest Chemical Brothers or Prodigy long-player, it’s not often a dance album rouses excitement amongst those predominately distanced from the scene - and hey, even those mouldy middle-aged, broadsheet music hacks. True, Mylo did it with the impressive - if a tad lightweight - ‘Destroy Rock N’ Roll’, but more astonishingly Vitalic (aka Pascal Arbez) made the precarious crossover to the mainstream psyche this year with the highly uncompromising ‘OK Cowboy’. With a sound firmly entrenched in the underground club, featuring pummelling tech-tinged-opuses (‘La Rock 01’), bleepy electro numbers (‘Nooo’), electronic euphoria (‘Repair Machines’) and ambient gems (‘Trahison’), it’s a defining work of startling depth. Accordingly, Gigwise caught up with the Frenchman to get the low down on the record and all the commotion sounding him…  

Perhaps the only disappointing thing about ‘OK Cowboy’ for legions of dance fans was that it took so long to come out. In late 2001, Vitalic released the seminal ‘Poney EP’, a four-track (three of which appear on the album) that was plugged by 2 Many DJs and appearing on ‘As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2’, Jeff Mills, Ritchie Hawtin and a whole array of superstar DJs. It frankly left many gagging for more, and it took over three years for this thirst to be quenched. However, Vitalic is keen to stress he wasn’t in any rush: “I always said I'd do an album but I never said when and where, so I did it at my pace. I toured a lot, I had fun. I didn't do music for a long period after ‘Poney’. I started again only when I felt like I wanted to do music again… I don't see why things should be always instant and quick.”

Instead of being over zealous after the initial excitement surrounding the ‘Poney EP’, Vitalic avoided big recording studios and prestigious producers and instead worked by himself at home. Quick to extol the virtues of working on your own territory, Vitalic tells us: “I’m used to doing music in my home studio, so I didn’t want to change my habits for the album. Then, the budget in a studio is higher and not worth for worth it for electronic music. Finally, because you can take the time you want, and work whenever you want, even at night.”

Since its release in April, the critical hype around ‘OK Cowboy’ has been pretty intense - not just within dance magazines but broadsheets, tabloids and more indie-based rags as well. Not reading into things too much, Vitalic dismisses such plaudits: “I’m too old to get totally mad after a good show or a good article in the press. It's pleasant and I prefer good to bad reviews of course. But being hype is not a goal in itself.” Asked about whether he thinks the album is worthy of such praise, he’s quite uncertain: “I don't know. It’s hard to say… I released the album because I thought it was worth releasing. If some people like it, that’s cool.” On the contrary, he first thought the album would be panned: "When I worked on It, I thought it was too strange and people would hate it. So I was mentally ready for bad reviews and poor sales." Oh, how wrong you were Pascal.

Of course, consumed by excitement, some have made some pretty ungrounded statements about Vitalic’s role within dance music – according to some, along with Mylo he’s supposedly ‘saving dance music’. Vitalic rightly nullifies such rash statements: "I think that dance music is not really dying – it’s changing, people are changing and all of it is evolving. Also I think Mylo is very good but I don’t think we intend and would succeed in saving dance music.” 

On the other end of the spectrum, of course, Vitalic’s countrymen Daft Punk have suffered a bit of critical mauling this year with their latest offering ‘Human’. Vitalic doesn’t list as one of his favourite works from the enigmatic duo, but he does defend the work “I think it really sounds like a Daft Punk album. It’s not my favourite one but I don't understand the huge criticisms and bad words they (critics) have got about it.”

Asked whether he’s now up there spearheading French electronic music, he humbly states: “I don't think I am carrying a flag except my own small Vitalic flag". Listing Agoria, Blackstrobe, Miss Kittin, Oxia and The Hacker as French acts who’ve already made waves over here, he points towards artists on his own label, ‘Citizen’ as some of the lesser-known French electronic acts that may soon be brought to the forefront: “I try to help new comers to emerge, some of them are French and I really believe In their talent, like Onurb, Shockers and John Lord Fonda".  Remember where you read about them first.

We soon shift attention to how people who don’t know too much about dance music may perceive him. We ask in particular whether he would able to those more interested in guitar-based music. Thankfully Vitalic seems quite optimistic: “As a trans-techno record, I suppose (they’d get it). The rock n’ roll aspects of the album mainly concern the energy and not the rock techniques really. I think they will understand the jokes in it (‘My Friend Dario’), and that I didn't try to fake being a punk or a rock guy, and more importantly that being rock is not only about guitars. But it’s hard to tell how a whole scene will perceive a record.” How would Pascal describe his music, then? “I would say that it’s a kind of retro-futuristic dance music."

Really, ‘OK Cowboy’ is a retro-futuristic album you have to own.