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When did this happen? We were distracted? Do not we know this? Suddenly Daft Punk have become the most relevant artists of the moment.
"Random access memories" is one of the most anticipated of the year. Perhaps the most anticipated of the year. It will be released on May 21 - but we heard a preview. And be prepared: it is a rollercoaster ride of music to dance to. While the Electronic Dance Music goes more and more towards sounds hard, plasticky, synthetic (a little 'tamarri, some would say), Daft Punk retrieve the dance played by people, not by machines, giving you a nice lesson in style to the last generation DJ superstar.
Waiting huge, we said. Justified? Surely crafted on a solid foundation.
Daft Punk hamm always enjoyed a universal consensus, since the beginning of the late '90s. Their mix of classic dance and modern electronics, their technological imaginary, the charm of the "French touch" ... And I'm eight years that do not publish an album of songs. Add that in this period there was the global boom of the Electronic Dance Music, in fact.
But above all, add a communication campaign orchestrated maniacally in detail, with advances and advances in advances. When you say "maniacally" no exaggeration. To say that we have listened to the album, arrived a few days ago at the Sony player in a specially modified, encased in a briefcase armored and padlocked, whose numbers had been shipped separately. No CD, no MP3. A scathing release that inhibited from writing / posting anything anywhere (including social networks and personal profiles), up to the current date. No chance to "leak" of notes and information. In 15 years of career (so to speak) I have never seen such a level of security - of paranoia - for an album.
In all of this "master plan", the longed-for arrival of the single "Get Lucky" was the first surprise: a song so cool. But a song "normal": it seems - at least for the first half - exit from the golden age of disco. Then, only after a while ', apart from the recognizable "sound Daft Punk."
A single perfect to introduce "Random access memories": a hot album, which revisits 40 years of dance music, with an eye to the origins, to the golden age.
It would be enough attack "Give life back to music", with chitarrine to Nile Rodgers (that there is here, but in other passages yes), onto which the robotic voice - real trademark of the duo. A voice which, however, is far from self-tune: the voice of a human robot, as they say.
Or would suffice the relaxed pace of "The Game of Love", the second song that quickly change the atmosphere. Or the long "by Giorgio Moroder", 9 minutes built on a spoke of the legendary producer, a suite that blends into the next "Within" - a play roller coaster sound successful and repeated in "Touch", another suite of 8 ' , this time with Pharrell Williams. In "Instant crush" Daft Punk even manage to make it look like pussies in the enterprise tastierone to the Alan Parsons Project, with Julian Casablancas unrecognizable under (filtered of course): it will be the second single, and there's little wonder whether it will be another success. There are games with the syncopated pop to Steely Dan (and even a little 'Fleetwod Mac) to "Fragments of Time", sung by Todd Edwards (already present in the "Discovery"). There are historical names (Nile Rodgers and Moroder, we said), but also contemporary names (Panda Bear, DJ Falcon, Chilly Gonzales). So there's all that there must be, and even more. And everything is done (and played) very well.
If the disk has a problem, maybe it's the length: 13 songs, 75 minutes are many, and several songs - especially the suites or full version of "Get lucky", that album came out at 6 '- are a bit' self-indulgent . But the ideas of Daft Punk must have accumulated in abundance, in 8 years and feels, and how if feels.
TRACKLIST:
"Give Life Back to Music" (with Nile Rodgers)
"The Game of Love"
"By Giorgio Moroder" (with Giorgio Moroder)
"Within" (with Chilly Gonzales)
"Instant Crush" (with Julian Casablancas)
"Lose Yourself to Dance" (with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers)
"Touch" (with Paul Williams)
"Get Lucky" (with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers)
"Beyond"
"Motherboard"
"Fragments of Time" (with Todd Edwards)
"Doin 'It Right" (with Panda Bear)
"Contact" (with DJ Falcon)
