Daft Punk "Random Access Memories" (2013) - a preliminary non-review

I bought this with a record token for Golden Discs that my sister gave me - yes, readers, Golden Discs still exists. I have listened to the whole record a bit and need to do so more to form a considered opinion. 'Get Lucky' I have already listened to a lot on my iPod. You have probably heard this too. I like its yearning vocals and its Nile Rogers guitars and feel that it will go down as the emblematic tune of 2013 even for people who hate it (kind of like the way 'Crazy in Love' was in whatever year it came out).

That said, I can see why 'Get Lucky' and the album as a whole is being seen as problematic in some quarters. Random Access Memories seems like little more than a pastiche of music from the past rather than any attempt to make anything new or contemporary. When the past music you are pastiching is disco (as opposed to, say, 1980s softie metal) this is not an entirely bad thing. Nevertheless, it lays bare how the creative well has run dry, leaving today's musicians unable to do anything but endlessly recycle the past.

There may be people in the world who have never heard 'Get Lucky'.


An inuit panda production

Forbidden Fruit, Part 4 – Music Sounds Better Without You

The fourth and final part of my account of my attendance at the Forbidden Fruit festival.

If I did not have a ticket for both days I would not have gone back on Sunday, but as it was we decided to head down early to catch the Trinity Orchestra (i.e. the student orchestra of Trinity College Dublin) performing the album Discovery by Daft Punk. This rather did what it said on the tin, and was a big bag of fun. They may have cheated a bit by having a proper drum kit and electric guitars and bass, but it still was entertaining to hear those uplifting dance tunes played by different instruments. They also had people (perhaps from the Choral Society) doing vocals, both lead and backing. Of these I particularly loved the bloke doing the high vocals to 'One More Time' and then the closer 'Too Long' (for which he was joined by another bloke on high vocals). They also had a woman singing 'Digital Love', who was endearingly mad for it.

So basically, Trinity Orchestra = total awesomeness. I hope they do this Discovery show again sometime*. Maybe they could broaden their repertoire slightly and throw in Stardust's 'Music Sounds Better With You' or some tracks from the JUSTICE album as encores. But whatever they do, they're fine by me and were definitely worth trekking up to Kilmainham for.

After them, however, there was nothing on I wanted to see until the evening. And even the things on in the evening (Caribou, Battles, the Aphex Twin) were acts I would like to see, but I would not like to see them at Forbidden Fruit. So I cut my losses and went off with my beloved to have afternoon tea in Café Notto (catching them just before their erratic closing times) and then came home. After a bit we went out for a nice Indian meal, a far more pleasant way of spending the evening than enduring whatever questionable delights Forbidden Fruit had to offer us.

Looking back on Forbidden Fruit, I find myself feeling all nostalgic about Indietracks – a festival not full of wankers and run by people who have given some thought towards what makes for a good festival experience. Who knows, maybe I will be crawling back there again next year. I won't be crawling back to Forbidden Fruit.

* They did, but I was going to Richard Thompson that night.

image source

An inuit panda production