Daft Punk split after 28 years: Details here
Global superstars of house music, Daft Punk have split. The French electronic music duo announced the decision through a highly suggestive video uploaded on YouTube, just recently. When media persons contacted their publicist Kathryn Frazier after watching the video, the news was confirmed. However, Frazier didn't give any reason behind the break-up, triggering a lot of confusion and sorrow among their fans.
The video titled Epilogue had portions from their 2006 film Electroma, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie documented the mythical journey of two robots across an American deserted landscape. The two robots break conventions and come across varieties of human settlements to find their true selves in their quest to become human. The excerpt dramatizes the split with a remarkable sequence.
The video, lasting close to 8 minutes, starts with the two robots, namely band members Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, walk on the deserted land together. They walk at the same pace for some time, after which one half of the band, Bangalter (the guy wearing the silver helmet) slows down without Homem-Christo suspecting. The two face each other from a distance.
Then, Homem-Christo walks to Bangalter's robotic persona. Bangalter removes his Daft Punk jacket, turning around as his bandmate triggers a kill switch on Bangalter's back, starting a countdown. Bangalter keeps walking, stops and self-detonates, as the countdown ends. Soon, the duo's active timeline from 1993 to 2021 flashes. Daft Punk's last song was I Feel it Coming by The Weeknd, which released in 2016.
Before their formation in 1993, the two were part of a rock band named Darlin', whose songs received negative reviews with someone calling it "a daft punky thrash." The band got its name therein and released its debut album, Homework in 1997. Known for their robotic persona, they circulated a legend of facing an accident on September 9, 1999, and adopting that form.
Detailing how "9999 bug" corrupted their hardware, Bangalter explained cheekily, "We were doing a track and our sampler crashed and exploded and there were sparks," adding, "We were hurt a little bit so we had to make a little surgery and then we became robots."
