Staff Writer
So, who else is ridiculously excited for Daft Punk’s upcoming album “Random Access Memories”? We certainly are! During this past Coachella weekend, the electronica duo’s first interview about the album was released. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were in attendance to witness fan reactions to their promo video, in which they starred alongside Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers that featured the single “Get Lucky” from the upcoming album.
“Random Access Memories” has been a work in progress since 2008. Daft Punk hit the studio on Paris with no real plan of action, but soon a concept began to take form. Bangalter and Homem-Christo decided that they wanted to take a new approach. In Bengalter’s words, “We wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers, but with people.” In fact, for this album the duo has all but forsaken the use of samples. The album was compiled over two and a half years, and includes tracks recorded all over the world. Some parts of songs were recorded in Paris, others in New York, still more in LA, and eventually it all came together.
The album features a few well-known guest vocalists that we can look forward to. As we already know Pharrell Williams makes an appearance (or two) but we will also be treated to the vocal stylings of Julian Casablancas (of The Strokes) and Panda Bear (of Animal Collective). Rolling Stone caught up with Pharrell at Coachella and he recalled how his involvement on the album came about: “We were at a party for Madonna’s last album, and I was like, You guys should have produced this! Why did that not happen? Madonna and the robots would have been unbelievable! They were like, We’re working on something. I said, Whatever you do, call me – I’ll play tambourine on it. They looked at each other and they were like, We’ll be in touch.” Clearly they followed through!
Speaking of collaborating with other artists, Daft Punk also found the time to jam with Kanye West in the studio. Kanye was recording his next album when he invited the duo in, and evidently at least two songs for the album came out of that session. This comes from director Michel Gondry, for whom Kanye played a couple of the tracks.
Unfortunately there are no plans at the moment for a Daft Punk tour in promotion of the album, which drops on May 21.
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