[Shaun]

The new Daft Punk album is rumoured to feature guest appearances from The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas and Pharrell Williams.

Contact Music writes that 'Random Access Memories' will also feature contributions from Panda Bear and other previously announced guest artists Nile Rodgers, Gonzales and Giorgio Moroder.

Italian synth pioneer and disco legend Moroder recently spoke about working on the new Daft Punk album, which is set for release on May 20.

Speaking to Vice as part of their Creators Project series, Moroder says that the album is a "step forward" for dance music.

"Daft Punk wanted to do something and do it in a way that's not done by just pushing a note or a chord," he said. "You definitely hear that it's nice and full; the drums and the bass have that warm, that full sound. This is like a step forward."

Speaking about working with Daft Punk, Nile Rodgers said: "The collaboration felt so unbelievably natural that it made me realise that I need to be in the studio with people. I love partnering with people. And then from that moment, a windfall of recording started happening. I just started going in with whomever I could."

Nile and Giorgio... this cannot be bad

[Shaun]

Tonight's biggest news so far to come out of Coachella didn't have to do with anyone actually playing the festival. It was a trailer for Daft Punk's new album, Random Access Memories, broadcast on festival screens.

UPDATE: Watch some very shaky phone video of the ad. It features Daft Punk performing with Pharrell and Nile Rodgers, and contains a little over a minute of new music:

The video confirmed that Random Access Memories will indeed have a star-studded list of collaborators: the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, Animal Collective's Panda Bear, Pharrell, Paul Williams, Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder and Todd Edwards.

Youtube video

THIS SOUNDS AMAZING

[Ramsay]

I WANT

[Mrluvaluva]

I quite like the Pharrell Williams track. Definitely an album to buy on release.

[Shaun]

agreed, they're perfect some classic writers too

[Harry!]

This album is going to rock, I love Daft Punk.

[Black Dagger]

I am so excited

[Niall]

[Shaun]

tracklisting~

01 Give Life Back to Music
02 The Game of Love
03 Giorgio by Moroder
04 Within
05 Instant Crush
06 Lose Yourself to Dance
07 Touch
08 Get Lucky
09 Beyond
10 Motherboard
11 Fragments of Time
12 Doin' It Right
13 Contact

[Mrluvaluva]

Digital Spy review:

Not long after announcing their return to music, Daft Punk claimed that the current fashion for electronic dance music - particularly in the States - had left it facing an "identity crisis". Handy then, that they've chosen to release a new album now that should, by logic, attempt to save the genre - or at the very least show everyone today and future generations how it's really done.

To do so they've taken EDM back to its earliest incarnations from the '70s and '80s, enlisting the likes of Paul Williams, Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers to draw on their expertise in vintage disco, and blended it with the crisp, processed beats of today. Lead single 'Get Lucky' - which was co-produced by Rodgers - leans closer to the former, though it's kept youthful by the inclusion of Pharrell Williams and their own robotic inflections.

Where they employ a similar template elsewhere on the LP, the results are equally as blissful. Opener 'Give Life Back To Music' serves as a statement of intent to breathe life back into dance, chanting "If the music gives you light... give life back to music" over addictive shoulder-rolling grooves, while Williams's second feature on 'Lose Yourself To Dance' employs a similar stripped-down, Prince-inspired melody that could have just as easily been released in the mid-'80s.

Rather than simply hammering listeners with an older-is-better schtick, Daft Punk offer up moments in between the funky soul that are both mind-boggling and utterly bonkers. 'Giorgio By Moroder' begins with a two-minute spoken-word intro from the composer, turns into a nine-minute masterclass in EDM, and culminates in a swirling vortex of clashing sounds that has to be heard to be believed; while 'Touch' shifts from the ballsy stage-singing theatrics of Paul Williams, to gentle cooing, to chanting choirs and back again.

It's exhausting, but given the gems that offset them elsewhere, you can't help but feel they know exactly what they're doing - even if you're not entirely sure why they're doing it. Offsetting the madness most starkly are 'The Game Of Love' and 'Instant', both of which dial things down into shimmery electro-ballad territory, on the latter calling "I never really know where to go/ So I chain myself to a friend" with a robo-vocal that is strangely affecting. The result is a truly bold and daring record that is thrilling, mind-blowing and, at times, a touch frustrating. But then again, changing the face of music wasn't going to come without its challenges.


Link

[Shaun]

Youtube video

You can't even use the "if you've been living in outer space, you might have missed that Daft Punk are returning with a new album" caveat any more; in a new official video, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo take to their intergalactic vessel to unpackage the first copy of their new record, Random Access Memories. Unsurprisingly, their spaceship has a record player on its control panel, which they use to give RAM a spin-- the first few seconds of album opener "Give Life Back to Music" are teased, mercilessly.

[Black Dagger]

Daft punk a d Julian

[Ramsay]

Major trolling going on in that video

[Smithy]

it leaked

[Ramsay]

link me plz

[Shaun]

it didn't leak, it's been on iTunes for streaming

[Smithy]

https://twitter.com/edm/status/333996831291895809

[Shaun]

give life back to music omg

[Smithy]

Touch

[Mrluvaluva]

I'm somewhat behind the times. Just listening now.

[Mrluvaluva]

I really can't make my mind up about this album. I've been listening to it for 2 days now, and whilst I really like it, I can't help being disappointed in it also. Get Lucky must be the best track on it, and whilst there are some others that have stuck in my memory so far, such as "Lose Yourself To Dance" and "Doin' It Right", there is no big track, like wow track, there for me. Maybe my expectations were too high with all the pre-album hype and such, but I had set my sights on more. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying listening to it. It's heavily disco influenced which I suppose lends to it's collaborators such as Giorgio (I knew that I needed the click) Moroder and Nile Rodgers etc, I was just hoping for more of Get Lucky (liking the extended version) and maybe a "One More Time" or even a "Digital Love" but I suppose that was asking too much. The vocoder on a certain track so reminds me of Herbie Hancock...

Youtube video

[Shaun]

there's some definite filler, for sure

favourites are Giorgio by Moroder (particularly the strings sections), Doin' it Right, Instant Crush and Give Life Back to Music

[Mrluvaluva]

Loving the album more and more each day. A little piece by Greg Wilson...

Click me.

[Mrluvaluva]

Random Access Memories has been given rave reviews by music critics.

The LP, which is out this week, has been almost universally praised by reviewers across the globe.

In a five-star review, The Daily Telegraph described it as "the boldest, smartest, most colourful and purely pleasurable dance album of this decade", while a full-marks piece from Q Magazine said it was "Daft Punk's best album in a career that's already redefined dance music at least twice. It is, in short, a mind-blower."

Rating the album 'A', Entertainment Weekly labelled it "a headphones album in an age of radio singles", adding: "It's also quite moving; melancholy runs through every song."

In a positive review, Spin likened it to "theatre: absolutely sincere and totally fake", while The Guardian concluded in a four-star review: "Its flaws are outweighed by moments that justify the excitement. It felt like a major event before its release: more incredibly, it still does once you've heard it."

Billboard rated the album 80 out of 100, commenting that it is "less of a 'throwback' and more of a salute to the idols that would now do anything to hop on the duo's full-length", while Rolling Stone conceded: "At times, the album is a victim of its own ambition. But it wouldn't be half as awesome a ride if it had aimed any lower."

Finally, The Independent noted in a four-star review that "Random Access Memories breathes life into the safe music that dominates today's charts, with its sheer ambition", and Digital Spy said: "[It is] a truly bold and daring record that is thrilling, mind-blowing and, at times, a touch frustrating. But then again, changing the face of music wasn't going to come without its challenges."


DS

[Smithy]

I think I prefer discovery