Vitalic - Flashmob

Pias America: Cat. # PIASA37CD
Released November 2009

Track List:
1. See The Sea (Red) (4:04)
2. Poison Lips (3:52)
3. Flashmob (4:26)
4. One Above One (3:39)
5. Still (5:25)
6. Terminateur Benelux (3:50)
7. Second Lives (4:26)
8. Allan Dellon (3:09)
9. See The Sea (Blue) (4:05)
10. Chicken Lady (3:26)
11. Your Disco Song (3:36)
12. Station Mir 2099 (4:46)
13. Chez Septime (0:34)


IN BRIEF: Respect.

Yeah, so I called it two years ago while covering V Live, but I really didn’t think ol’ Pascal would take until 2009 to release his second album. Jokingly, it was to compare Vitalic’s career to Leftfield’s career -funnily enough, the comparison remains apt. Rhythm And Stealth was seen as a quality album, yet somewhat lacking compared to Leftfield’s first; the same can be said about Flashmob . At the same time though, few will contest both are amongst the best - if not the best - in the genres they made their name in. For Leftfield, it was progressive house; Vitalic, maximal techno.

Pascal certainly wasn’t the first to introduce aggressive detuned hooks to techno but once he managed to shake free of the electroclash association from earlier in the decade, he definitely lead the charge. At first, it seemed like only he and Mylo would offer anything of note. Then, a whole collective of fellow maximalist Frenchmen emerged, the Ed Banger Records group grabbing all the headlines. The summer of 2007 undoubtedly saw this movement reach the very apex of the genre’s popularity, as acts like Justice, Digitalism and Boys Noize gained a large amount of hype and momentum -but where was Vitalic during all this?

Busy touring, most likely. Unfortunately, at a time when Pascal could have really made a stamp on the genre, he started to fade from clubbing consciousness as the newer names in the scene grabbed the spotlight. Now that he is finally back, just how much demand is there still for a new Vitalic album, especially so with maximal techno having received something of a backlash due to talentless copycats flooding the market with gimmicky knockoffs?

Well, that’s a question that’ll probably boil down to one’s personal preference over maximal in general. If you still have a soft spot for the sound, though, then Flashmob will win you right over. Even after imitators and would-be maximal stars have come and gone, Vitalic remains head and shoulders above many at this. The reason for standing tall is the fact he knows how to write songs rather than tracks. You would not believe how much of a difference this makes.

Far too many maximal producers simply take a catchy hook, amplify and distort it so the monitors bleed red, then loop it for the duration; perhaps they’ll add a drum break or additional loop, but not much else. It creates music that is instantly appealing, but lacking in substance in the long run. Vitalic, on the other hand, tends to add melodic fills or quirky twists as a tune plays out, making them richly nuanced even when the whole point is an aggressive assault of techno bedlam.

Take the titular track, Flashmob. The hook is little more than a tension builder but every loop adds something extra with each go-around, plus an added break near the end for some decent release. Funky nu-electro monster Terminateur Benelux, acid-tweaker See The Sea (Blue), and the stomp-a-long Chicken Lady work in similar ways; these aren’t subtle songs, but they do have enough going on in them that you they’re worth repeated listens.

Vitalic didn’t make his name doing maximal hooks though. Many times, it was the melodic moments that would catch your attention, and Flashmob comes with oodles of them. One Above One and Second Lives shoot straight for the anthem jugular, the kind of tunes Ferry Corsten only wished he could have made during his L.E.F. period; elsewhere, bursts of synth washes come at you in Poison Lips and Station Mir 2099. Plus, perhaps in a bit of a knowing wink to the scene that broke him, he offers an electro-trashy cut in Your Disco Song. Good fun, all of these.

That all said, Flashmob unfortunately doesn’t have many of those quirky unexpected moments that OK Cowboy had; nothing like the surprising Polkamatic or Valletta Fanfares, nor a tune like My Friend Dario, where you couldn’t help but break out into air guitar. To be fair, Pascal does bring us some decent downtempo cuts again, though Still and Allan Dellon aren’t quite as good as The Past.

It’s clear that Pascal has made his bed with the more maximal branch of techno, and if he’s going to kick out jams as solid as they’re offered here with Flashmob, who are we to complain? He was there at the beginning and, despite long breaks between albums, remains a force to be reckoned with. One can only hope that the Leftfield comparisons end here though; we wouldn’t want this to be the last Vitalic album, now would we.


Score: 8/10

ACE TRACKS:
Check ‘em all out. (well, maybe not the last one)


Written by Sykonee, 2009. © All rights reserved.