'Mythologies', a leap from EDM to symphony orchestra

Thomas Bangalter’s new solo album is as much a continuum with Daft Punk as it is a break

Thomas Bangalter has dropped his first major solo project since the dissolution of Daft Punk. Conceived in 2019, long before the French electronic music duo broke up, ‘Mythologies’ is a 90-minute instrumental score for traditional symphony orchestra.

“With electronic music, it’s so hard and it takes so much time to infuse emotion in the machines. So, to write a chord or a melody and have the performers — human beings — play it and have this instant emotional quality to it, is exhilarating. It’s not the fight you have against machines,” the DJ and composer said. reflecting on the transition.

‘Mythologies’ revels in the palpably human effects of an acoustic ensemble: the trembling friction of bows on strings; the exhalations of breath into brasses; the grumble of bassoon, with audible clicks of fingers on keys. The ballet is a stylised parade of myths from the distant past, but for Thomas, the project also has a kind back-to-basics optimism: “After everything, the violin will remain.”

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Even without the gleamingly artificial sheen and pumping tempos of Daft Punk’s trademark sound, the 23-track album does have the clean, poised formality and propulsive rhythmic regularity of Vivaldi and Bach — and of techno.

“It was a journey of learning and experimenting,” Thomas said. “How to orchestrate, as well as the value of trial and error, and also exploring the ’70s or the ’80s. But not the 1970s or 1980s — the 1880s, or the 1780s,” he commented.

But this new project is as much a continuum with Daft Punk as it is a break or rejection. The duo’s soundtrack ‘Tron: Legacy’ (2010) blended electronic sounds with a symphony orchestra.

A sense of ambivalence about technology permeates the slouchy, melancholy mood of ‘Random Access Memories’ (2013), the group’s last album, which was lauded for “restoring a human touch to dance music” and celebrating liveness over computerised composition. ‘Mythologies’ is, in a sense, another step in that direction. It had been six years since the release of ‘Random Access Memories’ when Thomas was approached, in mid-2019, by choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, who had used Daft Punk’s music in his work in the past.

“At first, I was interested to mix electronic music and symphonic, like they did in ‘Tron’, Angelin said. “But Thomas wanted to have a completely new experience. He proposed to me to write a completely orchestral score.”

Thomas read classic treatises on orchestration. To write the score, he abandoned not only the computer but the keyboard, at which he would compose during the Daft Punk years.

He abandoned one more thing, happily. “My priorities in the world in 2023 are on the side of the humans, not the machines,” he said.