Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter will make his first foray into composition for orchestra with his new album, Mythologies. The album performed by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine under the direction of Romain Dumas will be released on April 7 through Errato/Warner Classics.
Bangalter released his last solo album Outrage in 2003. Bangalter was tapped by choreographer Angelin Preljocaj to create music for the ballet Mythologies, from which the album gets its name.
A press release described Bangalter’s first independent orchestral competitions:
The composite nature of the themes that are tackled by the librettist and choreographer Angelin Preljocaj reflects the range of nuances deployed by Thomas Bangalter, whose 90-minutes timeless score shows scant regard for conventional stylistic boundaries. The body of work reveals a love of Baroque music and hints to traces of American minimalism, its brief phrases subjected to a process of progressive variation. A nuanced and colorful work, Mythologies is the outcome of a lengthy journey.
The project dates back to the autumn of 2019, when Angelin Preljocaj invited Thomas Bangalter to write the music for a new work that was to mark the culmination of several years of collaboration with the Opéra National de Bordeaux. The piece was intended for ten dancers from the Opéra National de Bordeaux’s ballet company, ten others from Preljocaj’s own company and the house’s resident orchestra. This invitation arrived at the very moment that Bangalter was itching to write for a full orchestra.
The form, the stakes and the creative process involved in Mythologies are all radically different and represent a new stage in Bangalter’s development over the last thirty years of writing, composing and performing music, during which time he has explored the world of technology and the relationship between humankind and machines in his seminal work with Daft Punk. This score does not draw on the resources of electronic music but instead involves the large-scale traditional force of a symphony and, as such, it embraces the history of orchestral ballet music in a gesture that is both personal and collaborative.
The work of this album comprises twenty-three scenes and as the name indicates delves into the legacy shared by all of humankind by embracing the ancient and modern myths that reflect and shape us.
Bangalter co-founded Daft Punk with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. The influential French dance music duo announced their retirement in February 2021.
Mythologies Tracklist
- I. Premiers Mouvements
- II. Le Catch
- III. Thalestris
- IV. Les Gémeaux I
- V. Les Amazones
- VI. L’Arrivée d’Alexandre
- VII. Treize Nuits
- VIII. Danae
- IX. Zeus
- X. L’Accouchement
- XI. Les Gorgones
- XII. Renaissances
- XIII. Le Minotaure
- XIV. Eden
- XV. Arès
- XVI. Aphrodite
- XVII. Les Naïades
- XVIII. Pas de Deux
- XIX. Circonvolutions
- XX. Les Gémeaux II
- XXI. Icare
- XXII. Danse Funèbre
- XXIII. La Guerre
