Philadelphia's Vikter Duplaix has a personal history that reads like, well, a short history of dance music.
Born into a gospel heritage (his father was a minister and Vikter sang with the Philadelphia Boys Choir), he was baptised as a kid into the city's secular soul music traditions (among other things singing with Teddy Pendergrass) and came out the other side as a teenager with a knack for spinning turntables just in time to develop a healthy interest in the burgeoning hip hop scene.
Here again being a Philly boy did him nothing but good, as local heroes Will 'Fresh Prince' Smith and Jazzy Jeff showed how it could be done and inspired a young Duplaix to head for the studio and immerse himself in the gadgetry of modern recording.
Again this lead Duplaix to explore yet more avenues of the Philly music scene, including rock and R&B.
Eventually he caught Jazzy Jeff's eye and was called in to help set-up Jeff's Touch of Jazz studios.
Through his work here he was spotted by Kenny Gamble, founder of the legendary Philadelphia International label, and naturally ended up working for him, soaking-up yet more heritage from the man who kicked the disco side of things into being.
Now all he needed was the link into Europe's dance music scene, which he got when he met Philadelphia's first minister of house, the sharply talented King Britt.
End of story and start of Vikter Duplaix the DJ and multi talented recording artist and as you'd expect his debut album is no throw away affair.
Combining aspects of R&B and house music, Duplaix produces intense but warm, subtle and soulful click house, that instinctively embraces dance music's roots in jazz as much as current R&B production.
So while the current single, 'Looking For Love', hovers between hip hop, soul and broken beat, it hangs on a bass line that takes its roots from Zap. 'Tropical Girl', meanwhile, is a Nu Yorican style summer Latin house track, 'Late Night Rendezvous' puts the rock back into lovers' rock and 'Wherever You Are' is pure finger popping R&B.
Naturally with this kind of pedigree the album's a very cultured affair that aims more for head and heart than the dancefloor. But as such 'International Affairs' has a truly global reach
