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Music

Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter Co-Produced Arcade Fire’s New Album

It’s not original music from the robots, but we’ll take it.
Photo of Daft Punk by David Black.

Yesterday, Canadian band Arcade Fire announced their fifth studio album, Everything Now, with its funky, disco-tinged titular track. Adding to the excitement for dance music fans in particular was that the track was co-produced by Thomas Bangalter, one-half of iconic French electronic duo Daft Punk.

It gets better, though: according to the album website, Bangalter had a hand in producing the whole LP, along with musician Steve Mackey and the band themselves. Producer Markus Dravs also has co-production credits.

In an interview with BBC Radio 1 host MistaJam, Arcade Fire's Win Butler explained the inspiration behind the album. "There's sort of an everything-nowness to life. I feel like almost every event and everything that happens surrounds you on all sides," he says, "It's trying to capture some of the experiences of being alive now in all its flaws and all its glory."

Any sort of appearance from the members of Daft Punk is a rare occurrence—so rare, that even Bangalter's helmet-less presence at Cannes Film Festival made global headlines. The duo last released new music in 2013 with their Grammy award-winning album, Random Access Memories. Last year, they produced two tracks for pop singer The Weeknd's new album Starboy, including the title track (their first No. 1 single) and "I Feel It Coming," which we called their "accidental masterpiece."

It's not new Daft Punk, but at this point, fans will take anything they can get. Watch the music video for Arcade Fire's "Everything Now" below.