This is the advantage of having spent most of his public life with his head hidden in a robot helmet: we do not recognize the musician Thomas Bangalter, ex-Daft Punk, in a tea room in the heart of the Marais Parisian, and no longer in the street after the interview. By an ironic coincidence, a poster presents the new film in which his wife, actress Elodie Bouchez, plays: I will always see your faces. That of Bangalter is now uncovered.
Two years after the announcement of the separation of the most famous electro duo, he signs the album under his name Mythologiesmusic he composed for a ballet by Angelin Preljocaj premiered on 1is July 2022 at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, and performed by the Orchester national Bordeaux Aquitaine, under the direction of Romain Dumas. The cover shows a fresco from the imperial villa of Boscotrecase, near Naples: Andromeda delivered on a rock to the appetite of the sea monster Keto, before the salutary intervention of Perseus. This is a bit of what the maverick Bangalter exposes himself to music lovers with this album under the brand of the classic label Erato. Daft Punk fans will discover a symphonic score calling on Bach, Vivaldi, Stravinsky, Prokofiev or American minimalism. While waiting for the reissue, on May 12, of the duo’s final album, Random Access Memoriesfor his tenth birthday.
How did this collaboration with Angelin Preljocaj come about?
The request comes from Angelin, to whom the conductor Marc Minkowski had himself asked for an original work to close their three-year collaboration at the Opéra de Bordeaux. Rather than committing myself right away, I told them that I was going to do a few tests, like a director can do with an actor. I discovered the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, built a hundred years before the Opéra Garnier, with Romeo and Julietde Gounod’s version [en mars 2020], and that inspired me on the music I wanted to compose.
From the twenty sketches that I presented, Angelin had the idea of these Mythologies, which gave meaning to this aesthetic of frescoes, bas-reliefs, decorations like those painted on the amphorae, with this fragmented aspect. Initially, he wanted more electronic, more hybrid textures, but that didn’t interest me. It wouldn’t be contemporary music, but something lyrical. Like music on pointe that you have to dance barefoot. It was still a form of retrofuturism, but in a different place than the one we had explored with Daft Punk.
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