Vitalic, an unknown face but recognized hits of French electro, celebrates twenty years of a career rich in international tours and prestigious collaborations, from Daft Punk to Björk. As part of his anniversary tour, with which he defends Dissenthis new muscular techno album in two parts, he is in concert on Saturday March 12 in Paris (AccorHotel Arena).
The man does not put himself forward. In his clips, you have to watch for his furtive appearances, hairless skull and beard under strobes in the recent Rave against the system or motionless silhouette when everyone is moving around in the oldest My friend Dario. The forties himself uses the words “in parallel, apart” to qualify his career.
The musician was never a follower, rather a pioneer, which explains some off-beat successes. At the beginning of his career, when he performed in an environment where techno beat down, he slipped one day near Nice from the loops of Giorgio Moroder, a figure of disco, in his set. Too precursory: the room empties and “the people who stay are the ones who do the cleaning, I hear the sound of empty cups on the floor (laughs)“.”But I insisted, and at my first Sonar (festival run in Barcelona), around 2001, I barely started, it ignited in the audience, it was really crazy“.
The English press will describe his electro as “metal disco“.”It suits me, there is disco in my techno, disco that sends“, smiles the artist, also influenced by punk energy. Same story with the track poison lips (2009). “When it came out I got burned by the public and the press, but eight years later, used in a film, it worked, it’s now my most listened to track“. Advertising has also taken hold of it and the title now has more than 27 million plays on Spotify, the world leader in music platforms.
That’s also dissidence, doing your thing, not trying to be in tune with the times because it’s already out of tune
Dissentmerge of “dissent“and from the English word”dancing“is the title of his latest album, released in two parts, the latest this month.
I called it that because the atmosphere in society in recent years has become tense, polarized, fractured, the album speaks of this tension but it’s not leaden either, it’s a call for Party.
The party, the kid who grew up in Dijon first tasted it through his mother’s vinyls, in particular a disco compilation with Giorgio Moroder. “When I asked adults how we made this music, I was told: with synths that cost a fortuneit seemed unreachable from my Burgundian countryside“.
Older, he pushes the doors of An-Fer, a famous electro club in Dijon where he will see Laurent Garnier and Daft Punk, without masks at the time. “I said to myself : I really want to do this, I started to equip myself late, around 24-25 years old“. He was then spotted by the German label pioneer of Dj Hell, Deejay Gigolo, who will be his launching pad.
But, here again, rather than moving to Germany or Paris, he will remain on the sidelines of the circuit, residing near Dijon. “I had a little house along a canal, in the countryside, on the one hand, I’m sorry, I would have liked to move around, meet more people, on the other hand, it allowed me not to not freak out“.
Anyway, giants like Daft Punk, Björk or “heroes” of his musical pantheon, like Étienne Daho or Jean-Michel Jarre, will come looking for him for remixes. Did he expect to last that long in the business? “When I started, we were experimenting, we didn’t know what was going to happen afterwards, it worried me to be 30 years old and, perhaps, to become old-fashioned; now it doesn’t worry me anymore at 45 (laughs)“.