Possibly the diva, French electro maestro Vitalic keeps the crowd waiting tonight, long past his stage time – leaving the Karnival resident lads holding the fort with nervous glances stage-left as they try to work out when they’ll be handing the decks over to the man himself….
A longer set from these guys isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Expert promoters, and DJs, the Karnival duo are some of Edinburgh’s finest, and play out a set anchored to a relentless 4X4 techno kick drum that is so dark & oppressive it almost commands the crowd to dance with a dictator-like mandate.
However, over the top of these bowel jolting drums sweep luscious Blade Runner-esque pads, fuzzy 808 clicks, Jarre-like arps, and strange sci-fi sounds. This adds atmosphere & range to an otherwise cranium bashing set by two guys who are clearly dead keen on hard as techno. If you like Glasgow duo SLAM, you’ll like this too.
When Vitalic finally arrives on stage, the pair seem relieved, and as soon as he plugs in, a raging alarm sounds from the speakers; a cinematic siren announcing the arrival of something a little bit special.
Vitalic is someone who knows how to squeeze every possible ampere of sound from a speaker, filling up the air with every possible frequency that the human ear is capable of hearing. There are classic Daft Punk-style filtered drums, chopped up vocoder samples, and melodies that sound like a formula one car being stretched out on a torture rack.
70s heavy metal riffs are digitally crushed & mangled deep within the CPU of his computer, demented church organs are pitch-bent beyond belief, and at one point it sounds like there is a giant metallic xylophone made from rusty submarines being smashed around a junkyard.
This is not just louder than your average DJ set, it is an entirely new continent of sound, full of imagination, tricks, creativity and perfection. Vitalic is one of the rare producers who dares to forge his own unique path, and create dance music that is not just functional, but has an emotional heart to it too.
So we can let him off for arriving late. Just this once. The man’s a genius after all!
- Neil Landstrumm - 16 March 2016
- Ben Klock - 28 December 2015
- Yak / Hidden Charms/ DTHPDL - 8 December 2015