David Carretta

French pioneer of Electroclash in the early 90’s, David Carretta produce hard edged electro, analogue techno and retro-futuristic synth workouts. 25 years on since his debut release Carretta is still at his creative best.
David Carretta is a modern techno producer who paradoxically draws its roots in the best of the 1980s.

On “Nuit Panic”, his first solo album the last ten years, the incisive and hypnotic melodies of «Visage» and «Prince de la cuite», interpreted by David, or «Dark Candies» sung by the Berlin artist Aga Wilk, point his obsession with the Italo Disco style and the seductive tones of the synth-pop of New Order or Depeche Mode.

The martial beats and hypnotic synth lines of «Come Here Come Down», «Destination l’amour» or «En cas d’urgence», recall the electronic cold and percussive sound of the Electronic Body Music introduced by Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb, a music fed by the nihilism of punk and the metallic sounds of the industrial music.

However, on this fourth solo album, the French musician is never satisfied with mimicking the music of yesterday. He draws on it its DNA, vocabulary and of course some of its instruments, especially its favorite synthesizer, the Sequential Circuits Pro One as well as the Korg MS-20, iconic synthesizers used by Vince Clark, DAF or Liaisons Dangereuses.

Between torments and pleasure

Like other French musicians of his generation, close to his universe, such as The Hacker, Terrence Fixmer, Vitalic or the youngest Gesaffelstein, David Caretta brings to these 1980s sounds energy and rigor that owe everything to techno. Not to mention more contemporary or personal topics that emerge through his minimalist lyrics. A song like «Visage» mocks, the obsession of social networks for the selfie, while «Prince de la cuite» is rather self-mockery, unless it is a black irony which David has shown to himself many times.

Nuit Panic, the frenglish title of the album, halfway between the themes of pleasure and fear, summarizes for the artist the troubled sensations, possible drifts and dangerous situations that can happen during the night, that evoke a night of pleasure, dance, drinking, wandering or fright. .

A discreet pathfinder

Discreet personality of the French techno scene, David Caretta is none the less one of his pioneers. During his teens in the French southwest, he was nurtured by punk and new wave, before setting up his first band in 1988, which could be described as industrial or EBM.

The synthetic sonorities of his first explorations naturally led him to New Beat, Acid House and Techno which arrived between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, before he publishes his first singlei by 1994 on Harthouse, a Frankfurt label founded by Sven Väth. Two years later, he continues to progress within the German scene by publishing the most techno «Innerwood», the first EP of another legendary label, International Deejay Gigolo.

Even if David has played in Europe since that time, his career will benefit from a new impulse with the release of his first two LPs, Le Catalogue Electronique (1999) and Kill Your Radio (2004), during a period which corresponds to the rise of Electroclash. Alongside Vitalic or Miss Kittin & The Hacker, he is part of this generation of musicians, from techno, who then renew with the rock, sexy and dark inspiration of their adolescence marked by the new wave, bringing attitude and disruptive spirit to a rave scene out of inspiration.

In 2001, his track «Vicious Game», carried by incisive synths and a voice from beyond the grave, is one of the iconic pieces of the genre. A dynamic that he used to found in 2004, Space Factory, an electronic music label that, over the past fifteen years, has published more than fifty references including Jensen Interceptor, the Fool’s Stone, Adriano Canzian and the most recent Jauzas The Shining.

From 80’s EBM to the ongoing renaissance

His next-to-last album, Rodeo Disco, is released in 2008 and announces a succeding decade when the musician will be more discreet and will move to the mountains of Ariège, to live outdoors.

He started his comeback on the music scene from 2015, with the release of two retrospective compilations of his work, Two Decades, which are accompanied by a series of maxis published by Zone, Mille Feuilles, Blackstrobe Records and the German GND , which demonstrate that the Caretta sound has succeeded to spread through the years.

For ten years, the electro scene has indeed revitalised into its past, seeking to explore the sometimes forgotten currents of its history. First with italo-disco, followed by a darker inspiration that saw the techno reconnect the industrial music and EBM of the 1980s, that a whole new generation of DJs and producers recreate today in the underground clubs of Berlin, Paris or Moscow.

A scene in full excitement that rediscovers the music that has always accompanied David Caretta during his career, and who may find through Night Panic, a new source of inspiration.