Vitalic

From the 2000s onward, French dance music has been a tug of war between silky disco and jagged techno, and most of the latter can be traced back to Vitalic. Born in 1976 in Dijon, Vitalic (a.k.a. Pascal Arbez-Nicolas) was inspired to begin making electronic music after hearing Daft Punk in the mid-’90s. But where they drew upon American house music, Vitalic gravitated toward harder, more continental styles, and in 2001, his whipsawing single “Poney” (released on DJ Hell’s Munich-based Gigolo label) found common cause between banging European techno and insouciant electroclash. It was an essential blueprint for the amped-up sounds that acts like Justice would soon take up. Like his peers in the Ed Banger scene, Vitalic has gone on to flirt with rubbery disco (on 2009’s Flashmob) and headbanging dance-punk (on 2012’s “Rave Kids Go”), but what hasn’t faltered is his commitment to sleek, adrenaline-fuelled thrills.