Review: Daft Punk at Coachella (2006)
This is a bootleg, albeit a high quality one, of Daft Punk's live set at the 2006 Coachella Music Festival. However, if you are or ever have been a fan of Daft Punk, you owe it to yourself to find this and give it a spin. It's exactly what Musique Vol. 1, the group's officially released "greatest hits" collection, should have been: a continuous mix/mashup combining tracks reaching deep into their catalog, recontextualizing and rescuing their old hits from the freeze of nostalgia and breathing life into the material from their flaccid 2005 release Human After All.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. (I only say this because a big part of the joy in listening to this bootleg, as in DJ sets and live music in general, is the surprise and excitement one feels when the opening of a favorite track emerges from the mix. In the interest of getting people to listen to this mix, I'm going to give some things away.)
The ease with which Daft Punk's tracks, from all points in their career, segue into each other is astounding, but in retrospect makes perfect sense: they've always demonstrated an endearing, unflagging loyalty to the old-school four-to-the-floor disco stomp, and this commitment to making people dance results in a set that pounds on all cylinders and never lets up.
At the risk of devolving into fanboyism for a moment, YOU NEED to hear these mixes. I cried when "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" came in on top of "Around the World" - the harmonizing synth line that binds the two together is nothing short of revelatory. And I was so happy to hear the vocal from "One More Time" given a sad tinge when laid over "Aerodynamik," something that I'm sure was originally intended to happen on Discovery but which I think got nixed because it didn't make sense in the context of the anime film Interstella 5555, which was developed in tandem with Discovery (the album was the film's soundtrack).
The list of great mixes goes on and on - the good-rough-draft-at-best "The Prime Time Of Your Life" is slapped in the face by the Chicago house thwack of "Rollin' & Scratchin'," while "Human After All" is aided immeasurably by the layering of "Superheroes." There are more, but I've spilled enough already.
On the downside, there are certain songs that probably worked much better in a live setting than in the home environment - "Too Long," for instance, which goes on for too long (couldn't resist) and also comes back for an unnecessary encore. And there's no one jumping for joy when a robot voice proclaims "I am the brainwasher!" coming out of "Aerodynamik." In fact, the Human After All tracks work best as "valleys" in the mix (compared to the "peaks" of their best material) or as supplementary/remix elements added to older songs.
Also, the electronic-musician part of me can't help but wonder how much or how little Daft Punk was actually doing onstage in terms of "live" performance. Clearly the filter sweeps are live, but the transitions are so perfect that it seems the entire set was most likely programmed beforehand. (Compare this bootleg to any of a group like Orbital's, which is much more haphazard and where the changes don't happen on every fourth measure.) Then again, that same forethought and programming is what gives the set cohesion, and makes me want to listen to it again and again. So far, this is my favorite music of this year.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. (I only say this because a big part of the joy in listening to this bootleg, as in DJ sets and live music in general, is the surprise and excitement one feels when the opening of a favorite track emerges from the mix. In the interest of getting people to listen to this mix, I'm going to give some things away.)
The ease with which Daft Punk's tracks, from all points in their career, segue into each other is astounding, but in retrospect makes perfect sense: they've always demonstrated an endearing, unflagging loyalty to the old-school four-to-the-floor disco stomp, and this commitment to making people dance results in a set that pounds on all cylinders and never lets up.
At the risk of devolving into fanboyism for a moment, YOU NEED to hear these mixes. I cried when "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" came in on top of "Around the World" - the harmonizing synth line that binds the two together is nothing short of revelatory. And I was so happy to hear the vocal from "One More Time" given a sad tinge when laid over "Aerodynamik," something that I'm sure was originally intended to happen on Discovery but which I think got nixed because it didn't make sense in the context of the anime film Interstella 5555, which was developed in tandem with Discovery (the album was the film's soundtrack).
The list of great mixes goes on and on - the good-rough-draft-at-best "The Prime Time Of Your Life" is slapped in the face by the Chicago house thwack of "Rollin' & Scratchin'," while "Human After All" is aided immeasurably by the layering of "Superheroes." There are more, but I've spilled enough already.
On the downside, there are certain songs that probably worked much better in a live setting than in the home environment - "Too Long," for instance, which goes on for too long (couldn't resist) and also comes back for an unnecessary encore. And there's no one jumping for joy when a robot voice proclaims "I am the brainwasher!" coming out of "Aerodynamik." In fact, the Human After All tracks work best as "valleys" in the mix (compared to the "peaks" of their best material) or as supplementary/remix elements added to older songs.
Also, the electronic-musician part of me can't help but wonder how much or how little Daft Punk was actually doing onstage in terms of "live" performance. Clearly the filter sweeps are live, but the transitions are so perfect that it seems the entire set was most likely programmed beforehand. (Compare this bootleg to any of a group like Orbital's, which is much more haphazard and where the changes don't happen on every fourth measure.) Then again, that same forethought and programming is what gives the set cohesion, and makes me want to listen to it again and again. So far, this is my favorite music of this year.
posted by Jon @ 10:15 AM
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