2. It's Not The Best Robot-Featuring Dance Album of 2013
Crucial to much of Daft Punk's most vital work (all of which, I would argue, was recorded between 1994 and 2001) was the producers' ability to cherry-pick the best of music's past and playfully twist and contort their sources in ways which pointed towards an imagined future. On their debut, 'Homework', Bangalter and Homem-Cristo re-defined the parameters of electronic music by fusing Chicago house and Detroit techno with elements inherited from classic 70's funk and boogie, paving the way for a renaissance in French dance music at a popular, international level (as exemplified by the subsequent rise of Cassius, Stardust, and The Micronauts). On their next record, 'Discovery', meanwhile, the duo merged the New York garage made famous by their heroes Todd Edwards and Romanthony - both of whom would become Daft Punk collaborators - with disco samples, 80's electro, prog-synths and ludicrous Yngwie Malmsteen guitar in an equally imaginative and influential manner. The record's legacy can be identified in various stylistic trends at play in electronic music today; from the sublime (Hudson Mohawke, Rustie) to the ridiculous (Avicii, Steve Aoki). As intimated earlier, one of the most disappointing elements of RAM is Daft Punk's decision to forgo paying tribute to their musical ancestors by inventively modifying, de-constructing or re-contextualising their work in favour of outright pastiche. Whilst the band's first two records showcased a vibrant musical exchange between voices past and present, Random Access Memories is the sound of two musicians often overwhelmed by their influences to the point of creative paralysis. https://soundcloud.com/spacedimensioncontroller/space-dimension-controller-you Fortunately then, another artist - Space Dimension Controller (aka Jack Hamill) - produced the album that many hoped Daft Punk would make in 2013. Hamill's debut full-length, 'Welcome to Mikrosector-50', is an epic, cinematic chronicle of Mr. 8040. 8040, impressively voiced by the 23 year-old Hamill in a manner which makes the producer sound more like a resident of Planet Rock rather than his native Belfast, is a music-maker from the year 2352, and whose journey - through space, time, love, drugs and bad nightclubs - is accompanied by a deftly woven sonic collage of cosmic funk, intergalactic techno and glittering nu-disco. In short, Hamill takes a number of Daft Punk's own influences - Prince, Drexciya, Tangerine Dream, Juan Atkins and John Carpenter to name a few - and forges an album which is in equal parts thoughtful and playful, human and machine, past and future.