Discovery

by Daft Punk

Overview

Four long years after their debut, Homework, Daft Punk returned with a second full-length, also packed with excellent productions and many of the obligatory nods to the duo's favorite stylistic speed bumps of the 1970s and '80s. Discovery is by no means the same record, though. Deserting the shrieking acid house hysteria of their early work, the album moves in the same smooth filtered disco circles as the European dance smashes ("Music Sounds Better with You" and "Gym Tonic") that were co-produced by DP's Thomas Bangalter during the group's long interim. If Homework was Daft Punk's Chicago house record, this is definitely the New York garage edition, with co-productions and vocals from Romanthony and Todd Edwards, two of the brightest figures based in New Jersey's fertile garage scene. Also in common with classic East Coast dance and '80s R&B, Discovery surprisingly focuses on songwriting and concise productions, though the pair's visions of bucolic pop on "Digital Love" and "Something About Us" are delivered by an androgynous, vocoderized frontman singing trite (though rather endearing) love lyrics. "One More Time," the irresistible album opener and first single, takes Bangalter's "Music Sounds Better with You" as a blueprint, blending sampled horns with some retro bass thump and the gorgeous, extroverted vocals of Romanthony going round and round with apparently endless tweakings. Though "Aerodynamic" and "Superheroes" have a bit of the driving acid minimalism associated with Homework, here Daft Punk is more taken with the glammier, poppier sound of Eurodisco and late R&B. Abusing their pitch-bend and vocoder effects as though they were going out of style (about 15 years too late, come to think of it), the duo loops nearly everything they can get their sequencers on -- divas, vocoders, synth-guitars, electric piano -- and conjures a sound worthy of bygone electro-pop technicians from Giorgio Moroder to Todd Rundgren to Steve Miller. Daft Punk are such stellar, meticulous producers that they make any sound work, even superficially dated ones like spastic early-'80s electro/R&B ("Short Circuit") or faux-orchestral synthesizer baroque ("Veridis Quo"). The only crime here is burying the highlight of the entire LP near the end. "Face to Face," a track with garage wunderkind Todd Edwards, twists his trademarked split-second samples and fully fragmented vision of garage into a dance-pop hit that could've easily stormed the charts in 1987. Daft Punk even manage a sense of humor about their own work, closing with a ten-minute track aptly titled "Too Long." ~ John Bush

Product Details

Release Date:	02/18/2022
Label:	Daft Life
UPC:	0190296617164
Rank:	1198

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Daft Punk   Primary Artist,Vocals
Romanthony   Primary Artist,Vocals
Todd Edwards   Primary Artist,Vocals
Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo   Drums,Vocals,Vocoder,Synthesizer
Thomas Bangalter   Drums,Vocals,Vocoder,Synthesizer

Technical Credits

Barry Manilow   Composer
Edwin Birdsong   Composer
E. Birdsong   Composer
Romanthony   Producer
Marty Panzer   Composer
George Duke   Composer
Todd Edwards   Producer
Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo   Concept,Composer,Musician,Producer,Art Direction
DJ Sneak   Composer
Daft Punk   Producer,Illustrations
Daniel Vangarde   Concept,Art Direction
Thomas Bangalter   Concept,Composer,Musician,Producer,Art Direction
Simon Scott   Concept,Art Direction
Moore   Composer
Kumiko Izumiya   Design,Artwork,Logo Design
A-Lex   Concept,Art Direction
Luis Sanchis   Photography
Pedro Winter   Concept,Art Direction
Mitchell Feinberg   Photography
Nilesh "Nilz" Patel   Mastering
A. Moore   Composer
Tonya Gardner   Engineer
Gildas Loaec   Concept,Art Direction
Alexandre Courtes   Logo Design
Anthony Moore   Composer
Nilesh Patel   Engineer,Mastering Engineer
Todd Imperatrice   Composer
Carlos Sosa   Composer