Last year, about the time of Superb Owl XLVII, there was high anticipation – no, yearning – for a new Daft Punk record. Somehow, after just enough time to process the jarring, mechanical monotony of Human After All, we really missed the connection of their style. There was a teaser for Get Lucky at Coachella in April, and it was surreal to witness not only evidence of new material, but also Nile Rogers and Pharrell Williams grooving next to robots. The album Random Accesss Memories was released in May, and Get Lucky broke out immediately as a sly jingle for condoms. Continue reading →

Now that I’ve got such a great setup for hearing music closer to the way the recording engineers originally intended, I’m hearing a lot more of the intricate artistic and technical expression. Not only can I boggle at the discovery of, “Oh, there’s a bass player on this record,” but now I can marvel at, “Intriguing choice to accent the rhythm with castinettes!” I’ve really been drawn into one record lately since it so well-produced and engineered (Stephen Lipson is involved), and it’s something that has been around a long time already. Annie Lennox came out big in the early 80’s, cool and intimidating with short, orange hair and slapping a riding crop. It turns out she was always really nice and a phenomenal soul singer, and not a dominatrix robot. I liked the Eurythmics a lot in the 80’s, but I guess I wasn’t ready until this last weekend to try Annie’s solo “Diva” from 1992. I just listened through a few times – now I’m deeply impacted and hooked. Continue reading →