Vitalic: Voyager album review – Pushing the blissful buttons

Some things just can't be hurried. Pascal Arbez always leaves a few years between albums so that the grooves can properly percolate and he can come up with a new shizzle. The French producer's fourth album may have been two years in the making but, truth be told, it's probably more like decades given the drift he's exploring here. Voyager has Arbez throwing the kind of retro, high-class, shimmering disco shapes which have you thinking of Giorgio Moroder and Cerrone at their most wickedly innovative. What's striking about Arbez's gait is how he combines old-school textural synth vibes with giddy, on-point futuristic production gumption to produce tracks like Levitation and Lightspeed, which are nigh on faultless. There are also well-judged contributions from David Shaw (Waiting For The) and Miss Kittin (Hans Is Driving) as Arbez pushes the blissful buttons, though there's also the likes of Sweet Cigarette, where his attempts at humour fall well short of the mark. vitalic.org