It’s been ten years since Parisian producer Viken Arman launched his career with his debut EP Addiction on Délicieuse Musique, the star label of the electro-chill genre in the early 2010s. Since then, his music has evolved into melodic, contemplative house, infused with the sounds of his Armenian heritage and sometimes flirting with ambient vibes. It’s melancholic, spiritual music, made for the great outdoors, which is why he played in the desert at Burning Man in 2016 and the following year for Cercle in the magnificent setting of the belvedere at Les Caillettes, where you can look out over the forest of Orléans.
Since then, Viken Arman has moved to Berlin, where he’s found his home. And we all know what happens to electronic music artists when surrounded by dancefloors as hot as the Berghain, the Watergate or Club Der Visionaere: they start making music to dance to.
And that’s how Viken Arman found himself releasing his first club music album, after dreaming of a record featuring collaborations with jazz musicians and singers just a few years ago. However, going in a different direction, his debut full-length album Alone Together (it’s all in the title) stands alone, with no guests or vocals. “What’s important is that it’s aligned with the present moment. Sometimes you don’t have to think too much,” he says philosophically.
And he didn’t think too hard about it: you can feel throughout that this album was written with the energy of dance flowing within him. But Arman isn’t the kind of guy to make tracks formatted for the mix. He shows this by multiplying the formats with tracks of 2, 4 or 9 minutes, and twists like on the unstoppable “You Don’t Hurt Me”, where he breaks the beat at the moment of the drop, before going into electro swing mode, injecting an irresistible drive into the second half of the track.
Nor is he a monomaniac, alternating between shamanic house à la Acid Pauli (with whom he released “Reading from a Secret” in 2022) and filtered French Touch-style house (”Can’t Do Without You”). A trippy journey that concludes with Alone Together, launched by a cosmic synth on which we find the contemplative and psychedelic Viken Arman, with this piano loop that goes on ad infinitum. Music for the club... or the desert. Qobuzissime!
