Celebrating the 10th anniversary of their epochal Grammy-winning final album, “Random Access Memories,” the iconic French music duo is back with an expanded edition that features 35 minutes of previously unreleased music across nine songs.
Among the tracks is “The Writing of Fragments of Time,” a documentary track that dives into the writing and recording of the duo’s Todd Edwards collaboration “Fragments of Time”. According to Variety, the song is a “documentary track that nods back to the RAM album track ‘Giorgio by Moroder,’ in which the iconic Giorgio Moroder discusses his own creative process and come up.” The 8 minutes and 25-second-long clip captures the moments between Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and collaborator Todd Edwards as they wrote “Fragments of Time,” within a day. Throughout the track, you’ll hear the producers bouncing ideas off one another, testing out different lyrics for the song.
“The Writing Fragments of Time” arrives ahead of the release of Random Access Memories 10th Anniversary Edition, which is slated to officially launch on May 12.
Upon its release in 2013 the original track, “Fragments of Time, captured an element of the origins of the collaboration with the story of how Todd Edwards went to California to record with Daft Punk.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean the duo is reuniting. Daft Punk unexpectedly announced their split back in 2021. After 28 years of career and 11 albums released, Daft Punk announced their dissolution to the world with an 8-minute short film: Epilogue. They sparked comeback rumours in February 2022, with a sudden return to social media and a one-time-only livestream of their 1997 “Daftendirektour” concert in Los Angeles, recorded without their iconic helmets. But there has hardly been any other activity since. As Pitchfork reported, in a recent interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Edwards spoke about the latest album and the band’s shocking retirement. When asked if he thought they might get back together at some point, Edwards remarked, “I wouldn’t count it out.”
Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter formed Daft Punk back in 1993. They broke onto the scene in 1995 with hit singles “Da Funk” and “Alive,” from their debut album Homework. The duo went on to release “Harder, Better Faster, Stronger” and “One More Time,” two more wildly successful singles. By the release of its follow-up, Discovery, in 2001, the duo had taken to making public appearances in the robot outfits that became their trademark. They again found massive success with “Get Lucky,” the lead track off their 2013 album Random Access Memories. Expanding their mainstream appeal, Daft Punk later co-produced several songs off Kanye West‘s Yeezus and collaborated with The Weeknd on the chart-topping single “Starboy.” The electronic music duo redefined the genres of dance and house.
Since their split, sales and streams of their music soared, with an 891 per cent increase in global streams on Spotify in the day after the announcement was made. The streaming platform also reported that the news created a wave of 3,778,718 new music discoveries from listeners who were new to Daft Punk.
While new music might not be in the works, soon after their 2021 retirement, John Murray Press / Hachette UK announced a new book chronicling the impact and legacy of Daft Punk, called “After Daft”. Featuring interviews with more than 100 artists, including the likes of Franz Ferdinanz, the book will hit the shelves in 2024.
