For its tenth anniversary, Ed Banger pulled out all the stops. On March 1, the Parisian label turned the 97,000 square feet of the capital city’s Grande Halle de la Villette into a giant carnival. The over-the-top event featured performances by Breakbot, SebastiAn, Brodinski, Boston Bun, Justice, and master of ceremonies Pedro Winter. Winter’s fantastic set design was done by the agency Superbien, which manufactured a giant inflatable “Busy P” that served as projection screen for videos. It was a memorable night.
Following the success of his track “Nightcall,” released in 2010 and used as the theme song for the 2011 film Drive directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, the French musician Kavinsky released his first album eight years after signing with the label Record Makers. Drive put his career on the fast track, and the artist’s obsession with cars—especially when they were red and fast—was evident in his record, OutRun. It also highlighted his love of movie soundtracks, which he boosted with synth-heavy electro-house music that sounded like John Carpenter on steroids.
American techno producers had long been frustrated about not being recognized as musicians in their own right. They dealt with their insecurities by collaborating with symphony orchestras (Jeff Mills and his Blue Potential album, which was recorded with the Montpellier Philharmonic) and experimenting with jazz (Carl Craig and his abstract jazz album Programmed, produced under the name Innerzone Orchestra).
In France, three classically trained musicians, the drummer Aymeric Westrich and pianists Francesco Tristano and Rami Khalifé (the son of the famous Lebanese guitarist Marcel Khalifé), took the opposite—and rather mischievous—tack, proving that the two worlds could come together easily with just two pianos, a drum set, and a few machines. Tristano quickly chose to pursue a solo career, and the trio’s final album, Istiklaliya, as well its excellent single, “Kyrie,” was also their final release on the InFiné record label. The Westrich and Khalifé duo left the label for the prestigious record company Decca, under which they released their temperamental third album, Turbulences.
At the end of February 2013, Daft Punk’s Facebook page was suddenly updated with a new detail: the group added a new profile picture and announced that it had signed with Columbia. In early March, they ran a short ad during the show Saturday Night Live. At the end of March, they added a page to their website to pre-order a new album. In mid-April, 90 seconds of “Get Lucky” were shown during the Californian music festival Coachella. With this perfectly targeted, six-week marketing blitz, the masked duo generated such hype that Columbia had to release their fourth album, Random Access Memories, four days before its official drop date on May 17. From their humble beginnings in Thomas Bangalter’s room, where they recorded Homework, Daft Punk had become the most important French group in the world.
The critically acclaimed album topped the charts in almost every country, and RAM became the world’s best-selling record the week of its release. Its first single, “Get Lucky,” was the year’s runaway hit. Setting aside the machines that had previously made them so successful, Daft Punk enlisted for this quintessential funky tune Nile Rodgers, the bassist from Chic, and Pharrell Williams on vocals in a thinly veiled tribute to the 1970s. Random Access Memories was all about groove, and its production included more than just the duo; Daft Punk collaborated with “real” musicians, including drummers, guitarists, and brass players, as well as singers such as Panda Bear, Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, Pharrell (three times), and the godfather of European disco, Giorgio Moroder. The album sold 3.7 million copies in one year and received five Grammy Awards on January 26, including Best Record of the Year (“Get Lucky”), Album of the Year, and Best Dance/Electronica Album. Daft Punk had swept the board.
After five years of publishing effective techno maxi-singles under Turbo, the Montreal label from the DJ-producer Tiga; Zone, which was cofounded by a Grenoble-based friend, The Hacker; and Bromance, launched by Brodinski, Lyon-native Gesaffelstein kicked it into high gear by signing with Parlophone to release his first album, Aleph, a saga halfway between an oppressive techno sound and dark, melancholic electronica. The record pulled from a range of sources, including Italian disco, Belgian EBM, and North American electro-techno, which matched perfectly with Gesaffelstein’s image. Out of respect for his audience, the artist always made a point of performing in a dark suit.
