But the Daft Punk remix is something else, distilling the original elements into a tune that, while little changed, is 100 times fiercer and more direct than the I:Cube original, all nagging key runs and sweet filter release. The original is a twitchy, unusual piece of jazzy house, very worthwhile in its own right. So was Nicolas Chaix, AKA I:Cube, so it made sense for him to call them in to remix his second 12in single, Disco Cubizm. In 1996, though, Daft Punk were just a couple of young producers with a burgeoning reputation for their innovative house sound. Bangalter ran the peerless Roulé label, which released his own solo work as well as music by Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon, not to mention Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You, while De Homem-Christo had his Crydamoure label, which made filter disco its own. Individually, too, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, were vitally important to the French touch. The duo’s early records were instrumental in attracting attention to the scene, they pioneered the filter disco sound that the French touch would make its own, and they gave a leg up to countless young French producers by letting them remix their work (as seen on the Daft Club remix album). I:Cube – Disco Cubizm (Daft Punk remix)ĭaft Punk’s influence towers over the French touch. The effect is like listening to house music with a strong dose of flu.ģ. Ezio, for example, features the sound of a harp at its most dreamy – hardly the kind of instrument you can imagine Kevin Saunderson fiddling with over in Detroit – which dissolves into an unsettling, feverish chord sequence at the 3m40s mark.
#French music keys full
They are full of the freedom to experiment that being outside the US and UK dance scenes seemed to allow. But there is something uniquely European about them.
The 10 tracks within are recognisably house music, with a touch of the deepest Detroit techno. Released in 1996, three years after the duo’s debut, Transphunk EP, Pansoul provided the second sign, after St Germain, that something was afoot in the French house underground. Motorbass’s lone studio album, Pansoul, arguably remains the highlight of their recording careers, though. Zdar would go on to form Cassius, whose self-titled 1999 album is a French touch perennial, while De Crécy would produce the stunning Super Discount project. Motorbass, the Parisian duo of Phillippe Zdar and Étienne de Crécy, were key players in the French touch, both together and individually. And yet Sentimental Mood has just enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat, the disparate elements playing off each other, subtly shifting and mutating in a way that makes the addition of a second piano chord seem almost as exciting as a Keith Moon drum fill. The song uses little more than jazzy piano chords, shuffling house drums and a saxophone over its 10-minute length, which sounds like a recipe for wretched boredom. Sentimental Mood, from Boulevard, is the perfect example of his sorcery. Instead, it took hip-hop, reggae and jazz and gently caressed them into the deep house mould, achieving the nigh-on impossible task of making 10-minute saxophone solos sound like fun. St Germain’s music had little to do with the frantic, filtered disco loops that would later typify French dance music in the 90s.
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