Daft Punk is a definition of a legend. If you never knew Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel before , and then i tell you that these guys are musical genius dressed up as robot aliens who plays electronic music, youll be thinking im quoting a passage from Hitchiker Guide to Galaxy or something.
This year, the punks come out with a new and highly anticipated album : Random Access Memories. Their last release was Tron legacy soundtrack back in 2010 which spawned Derezzed. I just grabbed this album yesterday and after whole day listening to it, here come my humble review.
If theres a message that Daft Punk wants to convey with this album, that would be : This is not your regular Daft Punk. Comparing previous daft punk singles such as “Da Funk”, “Technologic”, “Harder Better Faster Stronger”, “Derezzed” and then this album would result in confusion as if this wasnt made by the same band. Eventough they are prominent electronic music artist, im not even sure this album falls in which category of electronic music, house ? nope techno? nope funk infused disco ? sort of.
The lead single “Get Lucky” sets the vibe of the album : laidback and groovy. Whole album kinda flow in the same energy level, no sudden spike of rage inducing bass drop. One thing that sets up apart and make this album sound so different from other electronic music is they use live instrument heavily. There is orchestra opening in “Beyond”, grand piano hook in “Within” and apart of “Doin it Right”, you can hear that most of drums sound in the album was done in an analog drum set rather than drum machine.
All in all, its different. If you follow this year boom of electronic dance music trend, its gonna be breathe of fresh air from your usual Avicii / Afrojack / Skrillex jacked-up-the-beats-and-drop-in-your-face-bass music. Random Acces Memories is Daft Punk transforming into Funk Jazz band.
As if playing in a huge pyramid with arrays of BCR2000 and epic lighting is too boring for them.
TL;DR = Random Access Memories sounds like chilling in a small funky jazz lounge outside Star Trek’s galaxy federation territory.
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