Take a few catchy pop hooks, infuse with a disco vibe, a smattering of synthetic/funk tempos and some sweeping, movie melodies, spice it up with a little club music to fill the dancefloor and you’ve got Data’s first out and out sound surfer album. This young French producer, just 23 years old, has mixed styles and influences to produce Skywriter - a modern, digital version of the golden age of groove, pop and dancefloor, lying somewhere between the disco revolution at the late Seventies and the resolutely FM style of the Eighties.

A fan of hip hop as a teenager, this pure product of the Myspace generation and the Internet buzz got up to speed just three years ago by riding the second “French touch” wave. However, Data offers something else, something that sets him apart from the walk-on starlets who emerged in the wake of the Daft Punk revolution. Like the British singer-songwriter Calvin Harris, his closest musical relative, Guillon injects a healthy dose of disco funk into this futuristic, next-generation pop, reminding us more of Chic’s groove, the classiness of Shalamar and the dance-inspired sound of Quincy Jones, than current energetic techno hits with their take-no-prisoners sound.

In this regard, Skywriter, despite its deliberately low key production values compared with the bells-and-whistles wizardry of thirty years ago, has a strong orchestral vein, marrying vocal tones, choral and piano effects, hints of disco bass and funk guitar, keyboard harmonies and touches of rock, which in short is very far from the electro wave that first brought this artist to the recording shores.

This new pop family includes all of major current Anglophone producers, to which Data gives a respectful and modest nod. Whatever you think of the Timbaland/Timberlake tandem, Stuart Price and the Rythmes Digitales or the Outkast duo, this group of talented artists have all succeeded in their own way in reconciling seductive pop melodies, the modernity of the digital era and a few choice stylistic devices from the Seventies and Eighties.
 

However, compared with the American stars who dominate the MTV generation, Data is one of a kind, with a personality all of his own. Skywriter has a dreamy, synthetic quality that’s pretty scarce currency in the classic world of pop. Like a lot of other artists of his (young) generation, Data has a veritable fascination for mellow arpeggios, a curiously naive aesthetic and the futuristic utopia of what’s been calledspace disco, and the electronic spirals of a select band of musicians like Vangelis, without forgetting the unfettered romanticism of great movie soundtrack composers such as Vladimir Cosma. Lastly, other producers, having succeeded, like Giorgio Moroder and Ryuichi Sakamoto, in combining electro roots with pop charm and orchestral compositions during their careers, have naturally found their way into Guillon’s personal pantheon and appear to have had a direct impact on the writing of this album.

Skywriter, with its undeniable movie mojo, should obviously be listened to in one go. Written like any self-respecting pop film, the album alternates opening and closing tracks, moments of stress and ecstasy, dance scenes, moments of charm and end credits. Verdict, Renaissance Theme and Blood Theme, his most filmic tracks, resemble in many ways Moroder’s Scarface (Ah, Michelle Pfeiffer in the famous club scene!), Pacino inCarlito’s Way or the harmonious jiggery of François de Roubaix and the incredible melodies he composed for Gabin and Ventura.
In terms of pop, the head tones of Sébastien Grainger, formerly a singer with the rock band, Death From Above 1969, feature on two FM- and Eighties-inspired tracks, One In A Million and Rapture, both released as singles. With his velveteen voice and love of black music, French singer Benjamin Diamond is present on two tracks, the tender, funky So much in love (starring another young French artist, Breakbot, on vocodeur) and Skywriter, with its hit qualities, from which the album derives its title.
As far as energy goes, Nightmare, a dancefloor peak-time track, suits its name and promises to bring the circulation running back to even the most frigid of legs. The more epic Aerius Light, marries current energetic electro trends with the album’s space inspiration, while Morphosis is a mischievous nod at power pop and stage rock.
Lastly, slap in the middle of this album, packed into 46 minutes head to toe, is the instrumental Electric Fever, an exercise in pure disco groove.