The second album from french electronica duo
Daft Punk.
Quite different from their ground-breaking
Homework album, this album takes a few listens to fully appreciate, a feeling I remember having after I first listened to
Homework.
For starters, the tracks are structured very differently. The first three, including the new single
One More Time (wicked video, bad song edit), all sort of flow together, with what goes from cheezy to amazing use of the now cliche'd
vocoder, but hey, the Punk /always/ used vocoders. By track four, they're using vocoder-type effects in ways which would make
Madonna blush, and make
Cher return to her acting career.
The tracks all have a clubby, house feel not as minimalist as
Homework, which has already infuriated a lot of people who expected the post-
Homework evolution to take
Daft Punk in a completely different direction.
If you listened to and fell in love with "
Music Sounds Better With You" by nearly-Daft
Stardust.
The song-lengths range from 1:44 to 10:00, but average around 3:45. Some of these tracks are quiet, almost experimental
instrumentals, and other are straight-ahead DiscoTech dance tunes.
I can't believe I just used
experimental as a genre.
Warped Records is
Sub-Pop.
Cornwall is
Seattle. Richard D. James is Kurt D. Cobain. That's the subject of an entirely different node.
The band goes on to use synth-guitars in amazing
solos that completely blew me away. Speaking as a
guitarist and an
electronic musician,
Daft Punk has not softened up. They've replaced their
stark minimalism with a
complicated and
involved sound, which is equally interesting and addictive.
Apparently the boys in robot helmets have tried to add an "
emotional" element to their music, and I'm not sure if it really comes through all that clearly, but there is certainly a
progressive sound which permeates the album.
And to make things even better, they have, as
Radiohead sort of touched on with
Kid A, tried to make the CD purchasing experience more of an -ahem-
Discovery. Opening the CD I discovered my membership card for the newly launched
Daft Club. After installing some stuff on my PC, I was treated to an
unreleased tune, the decidedly clever-titled "
Ouverture". Sure, it's a way for me to buy future Daft Punk stuff easily but there's nothing really wrong with that. If the quality persists, I welcome the new method of selling me things.
So if you liked
Homework, get it. If you were obsessed with
Homework, give it a listen first. Love a "different" (aka
French) spin on disco/house/techno, then it's guaranteed to make you shake your ass. It can get a little boring, but it's techno, dude, chill out.
Here's a tracklist:
- One More Time (5:20)
- Aerodynamic (3:27)
- Digital Love (4:58)
- Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (3:44)
- Crescendolls (3:31)
- Nightvision (1:44)
- Superheroes (3:57)
- High Life (3:21)
- Something About Us (3:51)
- Voyager (3:47)
- Verdis Quo (5:44)
- Short Circuit (3:26)
- Face to Face (4:00)
- Too Long (10:00)