‘Daft Club’: Daft Punk Put A Spectral Sheen On Their ‘Discovery’ Album

The imprint left by Daft Punk’s sophomore album Discovery was so deep that it inspired another entire disc. The 2001 release, which signalled the duo’s transition from house music to a nouveau-disco sound, had been a Top 10 smash around the world, hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “delirious and addictive.” In France, it was supplemented by the appearance later the same year of the Live 1997 set, recorded at the Que Club in Birmingham, England after the arrival of the platinum-selling debut album Homework.

Before they started recording what would be their third studio album, Human After All, there was Daft Club, an album of remixes of Discovery songs, and one from that Homework debut. The mix package was released in Europe on December 1, 2003 and the US on January 26 the following year. Named for the act’s online music service, it had been available digitally much earlier, as a companion to the Discovery album itself.

As an interim release, Daft Club was not aimed at chart takeover, but it was soon showing up on Billboard’s Top Electronic Albums countdown, and made the Top 30 in Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s native France. Highlights included the Basement Jaxx treatment of “Aerodynamic” and a Neptunes remix of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” There were also interpretations of Daft Punk’s work by Boris Dlugosch, Laidback Luke, Slum Village, and others.

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Press for the remix project was far from universally complimentary, but the UK’s Guardian newspaper enthused: “A largely refreshing collection of remixes, Daft Club suggests that Discovery contained a great album that somehow never got out. That’s certainly true of the Neptunes’ dizzying, tourist-in-Paris mix of “Harder Better Faster Stronger,” and Cosmo Vitelli’s version of “Face to Face,” which puts a spectral sheen on the track’s blue-eyed soul.”

Buy or stream Daft Club.