Daft Punk, signs of life: new video for "Human After All" out now

Signs of life from planet Daft Punk. Five years after the "Epilogue" with which they announced the end of the project, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo keep recirculating the visual repertoire tied to their robotic mythology. A new video for "Human After All", the 2005 single, is now online, built by assembling sequences from "Electroma", the sci-fi film directed by the duo in 2006. The editing is credited to Cédric Hervet. In the clip, the two protagonists cross the desert by car and reach an apparently ordinary small town. At café tables, in front of a chapel during a wedding ceremony, in playgrounds under the sun, every single person wears a helmet.

"Human After All" was the title track of the third studio album, released in 2005. A record that split audiences and critics over its rigid, repetitive, almost obsessive approach, far removed from the euphoria of "Discovery". Last autumn the group celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a series of remixes also released on vinyl, involving, among others, Justice, Soulwax, Basement Jaxx, Erol Alkan and The Juan MacLean. Almost ten years would pass after "Human After All" before "Random Access Memories", the project's final studio chapter.

The leading duo of the French Touch, who disbanded in 2021, have also returned in virtual form – and it could hardly be otherwise – inside the famous video game Fortnite with the Daft Punk Experience, an immersive world dedicated to the celebrated French duo. It's the biggest musical experience ever built into the game, featuring 31 tracks drawn from the Daft Punk's entire discography. Players will be able to explore a dance-themed world, choose from custom outfits, remix and create mashups of their tracks, take part in a night party at the Daft Club, and much more.

In recent years, the two Frenchmen have relaunched their 2003 anime film "Interstella 5555" and, in 2023, unveiled a drumless version of the album "Random Access Memories". It was on that very occasion that speculation about a possible return of the French duo was fueled by the session drummer who worked on the recordings of "Random Access Memories", the final work by the French Touch masters, whose tenth anniversary was celebrated in 2023. In an interview with alt.news 26:46, cited by Stereogum, Quinn – that's his name – revealed some behind-the-scenes details of his experience with the Parisian duo. "In the case of 'Random Access Memories', I was more or less the last one to put my hands on the tracks. The rest of the work had already been done, and my job was to sort of glue the pieces together. For the following record, though, I was the first one in."

The musician then explained that "Thomas Bangalter had a keyboard hooked up to a computer program, and he was just experimenting. He was at the mixing desk, I was in the studio with my drum kit... He'd feed me ideas and I'd respond by trying to give him something usable." The material born from those sessions was then meant to feed into a new Daft Punk record. "It would be a nameless album, and I think it could turn into a lot of things, all of it spontaneous" added Quinn, who also revealed that he's still in touch with the two electronic couriers: "They tell me they're working on it, that something is coming out of the vault. I asked Daft Punk for permission on whether I could talk about it for another article. You know how it is, they're private people. Two amazing guys."

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