Random access memoriesthe last album of daft-punk released on May 17, 2013, officially celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. Leading the way, the French duo released a few tracks from the 10th anniversary album ahead of its official release today.
Featuring 35 minutes of never-before-seen music across 9 tracks, Daft Punk shares for the first time outtakes, demos and never-before-seen songs from the original Random Access Memories recording sessions. The new tracks are described in detail below track by track.
As indicated in its title, “Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo)” was recorded ten years ago during the sessions of Random access memories at Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles and Electric Lady Studios in New York. It premiered before “Instant Crush”, another RIAA Platinum-certified Daft Punk x Julian Casablancas collaboration that became a fan favorite on the original album. Dubbed Daft Punk’s latest song, “Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo)” has a dreamy, ethereal, and jazzy quality to it. Casablancas says of the track, “a bit weirder and more modern jazz in terms of the chords than the others on the record. It just goes up like a pattern – It’s a cycle of four half steps that repeats. I wanted Stevie Wonder to sing it. He kind of has island summer vibes too… it’s lovely and weird, like a human. And like a human, obsessed with infinity and constantly making the same mistakes and moves.
RAM 10 TRACK PER TRACK
Horizon Opening:
This first extract opens with the voice of a children’s choir which leads to an instrumental track. This set of tracks is completed with children’s choirs, as the last track of the set, “Touch Epilogue” also contains children’s voices. The bookend creates a mirror that highlights some of the main themes of this record: nostalgia for the future, the repeat loop and infinity.
Horizon:
“Horizon” originally appeared exclusively on the Japanese CD version of Random access memories, as a bonus track and was discovered by fans in the years following its release. As the final track on the Japanese version of the 2013 album, “Horizon” gave listeners a smooth, symphonic, and peaceful ending to the album. This is its first official global release.
GLB™ (Studio Outtakes):
This track is made up of outtakes from the “Give Life Back To Music” recording sessions with little to no production, and showcases Daft Punk’s experimentation, their energy, and the styles they were exploring at the time. It sounds like a jam session, but can be considered a research record – listeners can hear multiple inspirations, multiple directions, and multiple versions of what the song might have evolved into.
Infinite repeat (2013 demo):
The idea of infinity is central to the creation of this album and is emphasized in this track. Recorded for the original album, “Infinity Repeating” brings back the vocals of Julian Casablancas, who also collaborated on “Instant Crush.” Based on an infinite loop, the progression and lyrics of this track will make it resonate endlessly. The concept of an infinite loop will also be reflected in the official music video as an epic ascent through human history and destiny.
GL (first take):
This 32-second clip from what would become the Grammy-winning Record of the Year is made up of studio shots, a few cuts, studio sessions, and early testing. It gives a quick overview of the ingredients of the iconic track.
First (2012 unfinished):
Daft Punk started working on Random access memories in 2008, but the project was put on hold when the opportunity to work on the tron the soundtrack showed up. After the project was released in 2010, attention shifted back to RAM. This track, ‘Prime (Unfinished)’ is emblematic of the era – the unfinished track shows another side of the creative process and how some works can fall apart along the way.
LYTD (vocoder tests):
On this track, listeners take a peek behind the curtain at one of Daft Punk’s signature sounds, robot vocals. By stripping away the layers, listeners hear human voices behind the vocoders, the vocoders that are used to create robot voices. They hear the robots looking for each other, and the humans behind them.
Writing fragments of time:
Both a music track and a documentary, this track captures a seminal songwriting moment between Thomas Bangalter and Todd Edwards. Once production of the track was completed by Guy-Manuel de Homen-Christo, Todd joined Thomas in the studio to write the lyrics and come up with the main melody. The curtain is drawn and the listener witnesses the very moment they find the song’s defining melody and lyrics – a first-ever experience with the humans behind the impenetrable robots. The track “Fragments of Time” was fundamental for Random access memories, in which Todd Edwards (the only artist who worked on Daft Punk’s album twice) sings optimistically about how they’ll all feel 10 years from now. “The Writing of Fragments of Time” is a dream within a dream, exploring nostalgia for the future, anticipation and creation, like a Russian doll. It is a “making of” within the “making of”. Ten years after its creation, its release fills the void in the song’s lyrical message (how will we feel in 10 years?). It is also a dissociation of the robots, through the prism of a gang that is no more.
Touch (Epilogue 2021):
This version of “Touch” was used as the soundtrack for Daft Punk’s Epilogue video, the video that announced the band’s demise, released on February 22, 2021. While the original version of the track features vocals by Paul Williams , this version has only the vocals of a children’s choir repeating the lyrics “You’re home, hold on, if love is the answer”, again featuring the album’s central themes of infinity and the repeat loop.
