DAFT PUNK
Alive 2007
(EMI)
In 1993, Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo attended a
rave at the Euro Disney theme park outside of Paris. Techno hasn’t been
the same since.
On the duo’s recent U.S. tour—their first in 10 years—it
was clear that Daft Punk learned a thing or two from old Uncle Walt.
Their show, a sort of career-spanning Daft Punk megamix, was a massive
spectacle of light and sound, with every element carefully constructed
and synchronized to elicit maximum squealing glee.
Alive 2007, a sequel of sorts to Alive 1997,
attempts to capture that experience. The album contains a live Daft
Punk performance (recorded in Bercy, France, on June 14, 2007) and a
bonus disc featuring a fan-shot video for “Harder, Better, Faster,
Stronger” directed by Oliver “Brother of Michel” Gondry. The flat
camcorder shots and quick cuts of the video aren’t quite up to the
task, but the music more than stands on its own.
For the tour, Daft Punk radically reedited their back catalog,
adding jitters and jumps to familiar hooks, and more importantly,
mapping out new combinations and mixes of classic tracks. “Harder,
Better, Faster, Stronger” is more of all of those things with the
stomping bass line and vocal hook (not to mention some unidentified
synth squelches) of “Around the World” behind it. “One More Time” pops
like champagne out of the bell toll of “Aerodynamic” before diving into
the latter’s gleaming guitar solo before one more elated chorus.
The first thing you hear on Alive 2007 is the crowd
cheering; the audience’s roar and hand claps are present throughout,
echoing the peaks and filling in the breakdowns. The live show’s most
striking visual element may have been the flashing red words “ROBOT”
and “HUMAN” on the enormous stage backdrop that, by the end of the
show, turned into “HUMAN” and “TOGETHER.” There’s a utopian spirit
behind Daft Punk’s rave theme park, and listening to that roaring crowd
and these anthemic songs, it’s easy to believe a Daft Punk concert is
the happiest (hardest, bestest, fastest, strongest) place on earth.
ERIC GRANDY
SIGUR RÓS
Heima
Hvarf/Heim
(XL Recordings)
1/2
The music of Icelandic post-rock collective Sigur Rós pools
in emulsified wells of melodic condensation and aerated
instrumentation, a natural reflection of their homeland’s actively
percolating geothermal topography.
Sigur Rós, much like the Cocteau Twins and Godspeed You!
Black Emperor, have always operated in an empyrean realm of pitched
quivers and foreign, glissando tongues, a fable redolent with yearning
and fringed by a corona of sublimated guitar and blissful tension. But
now, with a DVD and complementary CD—collecting essentially two
EPs on one disc—the core quartet and associates offer a partial
glimpse of what burbles under the surface of this elfin disconnect,
both physically and musically.
It speaks highly of Sigur Rós that the natural details of
Iceland peppered throughout the Heima DVD work to add to the group’s earnest majesty, not divert the attention away from it.
The film—by no means a historical “rock doc” so much as a series
of impressions—abstractly chronicles a series of free concerts in
distant and sometimes derelict locations throughout Iceland, and from
the opening’s montage of screen-printing T-shirts and calligraphy
credits it is apparent that Sigur Rós strives and succeeds to
temper the trappings of professional musicianship with far more artisan
qualities. Gravitas and gratitude imbue the scenery, both visually and
sonically, with whimsy peeking through regularly (as in a rhubarb
marimba, for example).
Hvarf/Heim (meaning roughly “Hidden”/”Home” or
“Disappeared”/”Haven”) is also a balancing act, this time of electric
and acoustic performances. The first half features several
never-before-released tracks and classics that have been reworked, and
showcase everything from chromatic castoffs à la David Gilmour
to spooned silt (on the surprisingly straightforward rawker
“Hljómalind”), also akin to Explosions in the Sky. New
arrangements allow tracks such as “Von” to take on even more fluidity.
The unplugged, string-laden presentations, meanwhile, become even more
plaintive with their elongated resonances transposed from caverns to
hearths. These huddled hearts make for a fine reintroduction of
rarities. TONY WARE
KIM HIORTHØY
My Last Day
(Smalltown Supersound)
Kim Hiorthøy is a Norwegian artist, author, filmmaker,
illustrator, and graphic designer, most notably for label Rune
Grammofon. He also finds time to make records that range unpredictably
from techno to ambient field recording—sometimes to the confusion
of fans. My Last Day finds him splitting the difference,
tacking touches of found sound to more kinetic tracks. As a producer,
Hiorthøy displays an attention to detail and tone that must come
in handy in all his vocations—his songs are built out of layers
of discrete loops that Hiorthøy frequently adds, removes, and
shifts between without ever losing track of a mood.
For all the variations in arrangement, the sonic palette of My
Last Day is dominated by just a few sounds: clean acoustic pianos,
filter-muffled drum breaks, brief snatches of faint vocal samples (the
only intelligible grab is the incongruous “let’s get buck naked and
fuck” on the sentimental “Beats Mistake”), and the occasional sawing
synth, as on “I Thought We Could Eat Friends,” “Album,” and “Alt
Går Så Langsomt.”
The two former tracks’ upbeat 8-bit melodies are reminiscent of
Daedelus at his most buoyant, while the downshifted vocals and minor
keys of “Alt Går Så Langsomt” are markedly more ominous.
Songs such as “Beats Mistake” and “Goodbye to Song” manage to be both
catchy and fragmented. The nine-minute-long “Skuggen” gradually builds
and breaks down again from desolate piano to slow, steaming, pneumatic
pump.
Hiorthøy often wavers between melancholy and upbeat within
the same song, leaving the listener with the impression of a dark,
cold, Northern European winter about to break, or just breaking, into
spring. Yeah, it’s mostly chill music, chill-out music even,
but My Last Day is not without a warm pulse. ERIC GRANDY
Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Cranberry Sauce