Unlikely Summer Jams 2007: Daft Punk

la vermine, originally uploaded by nyresolutions.

In a year without any new Daft releases, it seems odd that Daft Punk finds its way through my summery speakers daily in an almost non-nostalgic way. Apart from the plethora of supersharp recent remixes of their classic singles (try the allknowing Hype Machine for some of the latest ones), it seems odd how the band's french touch has trickled down anew on dancefloors worldwide. It seems odd that their music feels as timely as the other artists sampled by Kanye West on his new mixtape, Thom Yorke, and the omnipresent Peter, Bjorn and John. It definitely seems odd that it has taken me 6 years to rediscover, ahem, Daft Punk's epic pop masterpiece, Discovery.

Back in March, I was at a much-blogged party at the Hiro Ballroom. The line-up was made up out of the current gods of European dance music - Justice, SebastiAn, DJ Mehdi, Busy P - and all the club kids (and just as many bloggy photographers were out in full fun force. Once me and my friend had elbowed our way to the front of the stage where the Ed Bangers were taking turns playing their records, we noticed that somehow the unthinkable was happening; New Yorkers were dancing. They were smooshed up against each other, storming the stage, sweatily wriggling around, but dancing nonetheless. Out of all the heavenly tunes the dj's taunted us with (you know the tricks: fade out the bass, bring in the vocals, cut out completely, then slam it all back in for the chorus, rinse, repeat), my favorite that night was Daft Punk's deliriously disco album cut Face To Face.

Unlike One More Time, or Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, this track was not released as a video or single, though it apparently topped the US club charts. More than the monstrously 'eadbanging remixes of Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine classics, this innocuous party track brought it all back. The summer of 2001 I spent driving around Italy and Austria with my family listening to the personalized mix-cd's I, the musical control freak, had provided them with. This was the era of blissfully perfect pop: Destiny's Child's Bootylicious, 'N-Sync's Pop, Madonna's Music, and Rufus Wainwright's Poses. Best though, in retrospect, might have been Daft Punk, who in Discovery created an album that they could release each consecutive track from, and still reign supreme over radios in beachfront bars, sandal & shoe-stores, and cars without ac's.

Since the other tracks are so hyper-familiar, I'll leave you with Something About Us, the sweet love-theme from Discovery's accompanying anime-epic by Leiji Matsumoto, Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. A summer slow jam, this has shades of Miami Vice, a late eighties kind of Alexander O'Neal vibe, but reinterpreted by lovesick robots about to leave earth for their less complicated home planet. For other otherworldly visual cinematic pleasures, check out this, the Pink Floydian final scene of Daft Punk's forthcoming film Electroma.