Owing much to the synthesizer, drum machine and electric guitar arrangements pioneered by the likes of OMD, Joy Division/New Order and The Magnetic Fields suffused with Chen’s lazy vocals, Vitesse continued to write dreamy, 80’s nostalgiac, synthpop songs with the release of Chelsea 27099 in 2000.Ģ001 saw the release of the “surprisingly long EP”, What Can Not Be, But Is…, which was in fact a full-length collection of leftover tracks and covers. Though the group doesn’t really break any new ground with this album, What Can Not Be, But Is… is so soothingly pretty that it doesn’t really matter. What Can Not Be, But Is… features covers as natural as OMD’s 2nd Thought and as unusual as Bruce Springsteen’s Unsatisfied Heart, both of which fit in perfectly with the rest of Vitesse’s stylishly sad material. However, the prominence of their inspirations in their music ends up being more reassuring than disappointing pretty, bittersweet songs like A Statue on Easter Island, The Writing on the Wall, and Starlight will please fans of old and new indie-pop alike with their simple, dreamy synth melodies. Vitesse continues to wear their influences proudly on their sleeve, delivering another batch of Magnetic Fields- and Factory Records-inspired songs on their third album, What Can Not Be, But Is…. What Can Not Be, But Is… is the third album by American electro-pop duo Vitesse, released by Hidden Agenda and Acuarela in 2001. Josh is settled in Chicago where he writes extensively for the entertainment section of a very funny weekly paper. According to the website, what was last known of the pair is the following: “Hewson currently lives in Nashville where he attends Vanderbilt University’s Law School. In late 2002, the dreamy You Win Again, Gravity! was released.Īfter this, Vitesse quietly retired to other pursuits. 2001 saw the release of the “surprisingly long EP”, What Can Not Be, But Is…, which was in fact a full-length collection of leftover tracks and covers. Owing much to the synthesizer, drum machine and electric guitar arrangements pioneered by the likes of OMD, Joy Division/New Order and The Magnetic Fields suffused with Chen’s lazy vocals, Vitesse continued to write dreamy, 80’s nostalgiac, synthpop songs with the release of Chelsea 27099 in 2000. The album was released on the Hidden Agenda label the next spring. Late the following year, under the moniker Vitesse, they recorded their debut album A Certain Hostility at home, in a marathon 36 hour session. They had worked on a piece for their Intro to Music Compostition class. The two first collaborated in 1997 at the University of Chicago. Klein was most notably once the drummer for the indie rock outfit Toulouse and a staff-writer for the satirical newspaper, The Onion. Spending most of their musical career in obscurity, this electropop duo was vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Hewson Chen and keyboardist/bassist Joshua Klein. Vitesse was an electro pop duo from the United States that formed in 1997 and went on indefinite hiatus in the mid-2000s. The capper is a surprisingly effective ambient synth cover of Hüsker Dü’s Green Eyes with guest vocals by Celeste Alexander, a ravishingly gorgeous close to a truly lovely album. The dreamy Out Under Stars, with its chattering keyboard riff, is a particular gem, but all of these brief songs (16 in just over 50 minutes) have much to recommend them, particularly Klein’s warm, throaty voice, which sounds like Stephin Merritt minus the deadpan irony, and the clever all-synth arrangements, which manage the neat trick of sounding as if they could have been recorded in 1981 without feeling dated in the least. Joshua Klein and Hewson Chen sound as if they’ve memorized every note of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s Architecture & Morality and the first couple of Talk Talk albums, but alongside the note-perfect re-creation of the analog-synths-and-Linn-drums years, the duo shows a gift for wistful minor-key melodies and the sort of memorable hooks that would have garnered some decent airplay on MTV back in the day. On the other hand, the third full-length album by Vitesse confirms the New York-via-Nashville duo’s place alongside Future Bible Heroes, the Rondelles, and other indie-era revivalists of the halcyon days of Factory Records. You Win Again, Gravity! is the fourth and last album by American electro-pop duo Vitesse, released by Hidden Agenda and Acuarela in 2002.įor all of the attention paid to electro-clash albums in 2002, most of them did not, in fact, sound much like the pioneering early-’80s synth-pop artists that were their supposed inspiration.
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