The Formative Years – Daft Punk
In the mid-1990s there was a period of time that due to a love interest, lead me to Paris every other weekend, where we often ended up at warehouse parties. It was there that I was first introduced to French electronic music and a duo that referred itself to as Daft Punk, so when their debut album Homework was released and we received physical copies in the record store I was working at, I intuitively put one away for myself.
While house and dance music has never been a particularly favourite, what Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo presented with their first album, felt special and progressive from the get go.
For a start, the title of the album was a telling one as the tracks were spontaneously recorded and produced in DIY fashion at their respective homes.
Then there was a deliberate departure from what had become a formulaic template that European dance music adhered to with its keyboard pre-sets as they infused it with big beat, acid house, ambient techno and a bit of punk rock spirit.
Pretty early on it became clear that Homework was a ground-breaking instant classic and with its futuristic approach paved the way for Daft Punk to become one of the biggest electronic dance music acts ever, long before they ventured into pop territory and the creation of their iconic anonymous robot helmeted avatars.
Homework felt like more like a collection of singles rather than a cohesive album, with each track starting off by relying on a single sonic track to then evolve via the incorporation of sounds and techniques lifted from other subgenres, which is then weaved into a cohesive house music based whole.
A classic album that despite its infectious mass compatible tunes retains its intimate, playful and innocent nature.
The Formative Years – Daft Punk
