The mighty pair of robots are back in a big way, here’s the french Nouvel Obs track by track review translated in English from French by Sodwee.com.
“Random Access Memories” makes up 13 tracks, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manual De Homem-Christo, review each one of them and give a little insight, before the album comes out on the 21st of May. By Joseph Ghosn and Olivier Wicker. Translated by Sodwee.
Give Life Back to Music
“One of the goals of this album is to bring something light and elegant to the table. In ‘Give Life Back to Music’ John Robinson Jr plays the drums. He was on ‘Off The Wall’, the master-piece by Michael Jackson. What is fantastic in a performance like his, is the infinite possibilities of the nuances, impossible to recreate with an electronic approach. All the Quicy Jones produced hits or albums always fascinated us in the precision of the production only reached by humans. It’s the difference between ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’. In the latter, the tracks are brilliant, but performances have less of an aura. Less character.”
The Game of Love
“We sing with vocoders. In an era where human voices are treated to sound robotic. We find exciting the fact that you can go the opposite and and give a robotic voice the most human voice possible. The idea of an artificial intelligence that would ressemble the human one. An emotion of something that is not human, but tries hard to be.”
Giorgio by Moroder
“We met him a few years back, he was always a mythical legend for us, a little mysterious. His personal life path follows the music. The idea behind the track was to make a sort of documentary based on an interview we did with him. Giorgio Moroder’s voice was recorded with different microphones from different periods. We finally ended with over three hours worth of interview material in which he recalls his life as a musician. This track is a great metaphore on musical freedom. We always push ourselves to break boundaries between musical genres, between good and bad taste, hype and non-hype. Giorgio is a model in that field. It’s fascinating hearing him say at the tender age of 72 “Oh, I was doing electronic music over forty years ago,”
Within
“Gonzales plays piano on this track. It’s a friend of ours, and a great musician, one of the best of his generation actually. ‘Within’ is one of the very first tracks we recorded. It’s very minimal, a little rhytmic section, a bass and a piano. Create the essential track with a little instruments as possible, that’s the idea behind the track.”
Instant Crush
‘Julian Casablancas from the Strokes is on the vocals. We’re both super fans of the band, and we got to hear he wanted to meet us. We had a demo lying, he came, he got to hear it and was enthusiastic about it. He’s got a gift. We, at first, love rock and the whole concept of a rock band. However there’s so much powerful stuff in the past that a new voice would have been hard to cut through. Recently the Strokes and MGMT – with a different approach – achieved that. Julian has this punk rock attitude, an emotional side to his melodies. It was important for us to have him on this album, to be pushed by our contemporaries.”
Lose Yourself to Dance
“This track is the simplest definition of our desire. A very detailed album in the production, but very simple at the same time. Focused on bass, drums and guitar, and of course robots. It’s the opposite of an over-produced album. Our fantasy, was to comeback to dance music with a real drumkit. To record it this way was very satisfying. We’re so proud it’s a real drummer behind a drumkit and not some beat box. There’s two drummers on the album, John Robinson Jr, who holds the record for most recorded drummer in the world and Omar Hakim, who started drumming at the age of 16 with no other than Stevie Wonder…”
Touch
This track is the knot of the album. It’s the starting point for the whole album. It’s us meeting Paul Williams. A sound engineer that we know presented him to us. He visited us in the studio. From there, something very cinamatographic, very narrative came out. ‘Touch’ would best define the psychedelic side of ‘Random Access Memories’. This song has 250 different tracks. It’s the most complex, the craziest of the album.”
Get Lucky
“Pharrell Williams sings on this tune, it was only natural to invite him on the album. It’s a born entertainer, a complete artist, who transpires elegance. He didn’t always have the chance to show off his singing skills, and boy, can he sing. We wanted to give the impression of being trapped in a glass bubble, completely isolated from the outside world. We could of been in 1978, but the idea was to get the music to travel the present time and also the future. See what happens and observe how this enthusiasm communicates with people.”
[download passport : ‘Get Lucky’]
Beyond
“Another track made with Paul Williams who wrote the lyrics. It’s an hyper-cosmic song with some of the purest, poetic lyrics. We chatted a lot with Paul Williams about the direction we should take for the album, it was interesting to hear that he could pen our ideas for real.”
Motherboard
“A very futuristic track, it could have been from year 4000…”
Fragments of Time
“Our comeback track with house producer Todd Edwards since ‘Discovery’.”
Doin’ it Right
“The angelic voice is by Panda Bear (from the Animal Collective group). We absolutely love the solo work he’s done, as well as the band approach to their music. This track – the only fully electronic one of the album – was the last one recorded. It feels so relaxed. Maybe our most futuristic effort and our most contemporary track.”
Contact
“A track produced with DJ Falcon, and a voice recorded on the last Apollo mission – number 17 – from Nasa. The voice from Captain Eugene Cernan, the last man to have walked the moon. It’s a voice that literally comes from space. And what it says, needs no comment…”
