The New Electro Barbarians

If you’ve been on a dance floor at any point in the last two years, you already worship Pascal Arbez-Nicolas’s champagne techno style. He records under the name Vitalic, and his Poney EP for Gigolo (the searing anthem “La Rock 01,” in particular) reduces millions of ecstatic revelers to quivering blobs as reliably as the tides. Now he’s got a new thing going with New Yorker Linda Lamb. They’ve named it Silures, after the only people who were brave enough to fuck with the Romans in ancient Britain. Described by the Roman writer Tacitus as a “powerful and warlike race” with “swarthy faces and curly hair,” the Silures inhabited the mountainous Silurian region in what’s now southeastern Wales. (FYI: Silures mostly wore Hessian tunics and rabbit-pelt shoes.) VICE: You produced one of the most fashionable records of the last five years.
Pascal: I don’t think it was that hip. I am happy that it met a certain success—it gave me possibilities to do loads of things. Who are your favorite designers?
Kenzo and Lagerfeld are my favorites. I wear sober and classic clothes because I have an attitude that doesn’t look very eccentric. So far, so gay. Will you dress like the original Silures when you play live?
I don’t think so. I’ll ask Linda, but I suppose these clothes are unadaptable to live performance. The Silures warriors mainly thought about protecting their lives, not looking smart. But they wore distinctive signs to be recognized by others, and that is a kind of fashion. Those Silures had a pretty good thing going, though.
They strongly resisted the Romans, having a very violent attitude and throwing rocks. That’s what first got us interested. Linda and I liked the idea of violent warriors throwing rocks. SUBURBAN DWIGHT