Daft Punk
Discovery: Interstella 5555 Edition
DAFT LIFE LTD
Daft Punk has an uncanny ability to remain relevant even though they haven’t released new material since splitting in 2021—their five studio albums released between 1997 and 2013 stubbornly and fiercely live on. This longevity becomes surprising when you reread old reviews and discover how many critics were initially indifferent to 2001’s breakout LP Discovery, while its iconic single “One More Time” took time to catch on with American listeners. Nostalgia can be a hell of a distorted lens, but sometimes it genuinely seems like we had it wrong the first time around.
Three years after dropping Discovery, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo teamed up with legendary anime artist Leiji Matsumoto to create the cult film Interstella 5555, an animated companion piece inspired by the aforementioned record. Interstella 5555 has been newly remastered for its 20th anniversary and is slated for re-release alongside a reissue of the Japanese edition of Discovery, containing Interstella-inspired artwork and other bonus merch. This new pressing is more of a collector’s item, as Discovery’s track list remains unchanged, and no new bonus material has been added. Still, getting a new Daft Punk release is always a treat, even if it’s just for the packaging—in this case CD, black vinyl, or limited-edition gold vinyl.
Alongside its corresponding film project, Discovery is awash in ’70s sci-fi imagery and other futurist influences invoking a vision of technological possibility and promise. Discovery very much feels like a time capsule for a brief period of optimism in the early aughts after the world averted widely prophesied Y2K-related disasters and just months before 9/11 and the ensuing years-long occupation of the Middle East. Discovery, then, feels like a talisman of an un-turbulent time brimming with carefree dance music, a brief moment in culture when the world didn’t feel like it was breaking apart at the seams.
