Frenchman Pascal Arbez, aka Vitalic, has just released his debut album; "OK Cowboy" is a lively assemblage of hard-edged electro cuts rife with frenzied throbbing beats and hypnotically repetitive synth lines. Densely-produced songs like "Repair Machines," "Newman," or "La Rock Us" seamlessly combine elements of hard Techno and guitar Rock into pounding dancefloor anthems that charge along with a manic intensity, while tracks like "La Rock 01" mix tinkling keyboards in with grinding backbeats that build to a ferocious climax.
Slowing things down a bit are "Wooo" and "Trahison," with their flourishes of 60s-style organs added to the production, or "Polkaniatic" where Arbez stretches his range of influences to the 1970s to produce a piece which comes off like an experimental Moog synthesizer composition. However, these interludes aside. the bulk of the album is devoted to intensely powerful full-throttle dance tracks like the relentless yet spacey cut "Poney" (both parts 1 and 2), "My Friend Dario," with its distorted vocals and raucous guitar loops, or the unsettling "U And I" which is filled with looming synth chords that seem to slide up and down in tempo as the track progresses.
Closing with "Valletta Fanfare," Arbez adds a live marching band feel to the drum track but then uses studio trickery to brilliantly twist and bend the sound into a work that gratifyingly brings the innovative audio journey of "OK Cowboy"' to an end. And while at times the frantic pace of this CD may prove a bit to intense for some listeners, Arbez's ability to add continual artistic ingenuity throughout this production proves that his Vitalic project is one to keep your eye on.
