Friday, May 17, 2013

Review: Daft Punk - Random Access Memories



It's been almost ten years since their last studio album, 2004's Human After All, and with the massive 2007 pyramid tour and the mass-marketing surrounding this album, it's hard to contextualize RAM without being influenced by hype and expectation. Or is it? Get a couple of listens out the way and you'll find your mind becoming a little more open to the idea that this is not Discovery or Homework, their two best known (and best) albums.

'Give life back to music' doesn't so much breath life as it seems to rely on a respirator, which, as an opening track is probably the point. However, if you thought it was a prelude to a thumping bassline of a second track, you're wiring needs a look over. 'Game of love' is a languid grower, a sort of sleepy ballad Hot Chip would crank out, but with the added bonus of the warmest vocoder work you'll ever see.

'Giorgio by Moroder' is an early highlight, working as both a short introduction to Moroder himself and a strong example of why his synthesized sound swept the world so rapidly in the late 70's/early 80's. Similar to 'Game of Love', 'Within' finds Chilly Gonzales laying down a sweet piano loop that is pretty throughout but never hits any significant heights.

Julian Casablancas floats through for 'Instant Crush', which seems to happy to coast on it's effortless cool and becomes wearing by the second verse. 'Lose yourself to dance' is the first time we hear Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, on a song that builds to an enjoyable Spoon-like strut whilst never losing it's groove.
The eight-minute mini opera that is 'Touch' traversesa few genres and does so confidently. It's another song that requires a few listens to lock in, but Paul Williams frail vocal is an instant gratifier. First single 'Get Lucky' follows, showing that a good melody and strong bassline never goes out fashion.

'Beyond' and Motherboard' are a couple of impressively strident instrumentals, something lacking in the slower tracks on the albums. It's followed by the Todd Edwards guesting 'Fragments of time', a track that sounds like it's been excavated directly from the 70's, in a good way.

'Doin it right' is most contemporary track on the album, and it's also the best, which bodes well for future releases, if Daft Punk chooses to move in that direction. The simple lyric  from Panda Bear "If you lose your way tonight, that's how you know the magic's right" transports the listener to a different place than the rest of the album. I wish I'd been taken to that place a little more.

The simple concept of robot becoming human, or trying to at least, haunts the album. I think if we'd heard more of the beating heart and less of the yearning to have one, the results would've been more engaging and little less distant.

'Contact' finishes off the album and it feels like an album finisher. It also feels more contemporary and more lively than any song besides 'Giorgio'.

In an early 2013 Rolling Stone interview, Daft Punk said that they made this album for themselves and that they didn't know what they were thinking releasing it, and you can understand what they are getting at. If you're not on their wavelength, you're going  to have a hard time locking in with at least a third of the album right from the start.

To give yourself the best chance of enjoying this album and appreciating for what it is, lose yourself to it and give a few spins.