Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter discusses band’s breakup

Thomas Bangalter has spoken publicly for the first on the break-up of his iconic electronic duo Daft Punk during an interview with the BBC. Formed in 1993 with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, the group released four studio albums to vast acclaim before dissolving in 2021.

Recent technological advancements and modern culture's embrace of them helped to sour Bangalter on the Daft Punk concept. “[Daft Punk] was an exploration, I would say, starting with the machines and going away from them," Bangalter explained. "I love technology as a tool [but] I’m somehow terrified of the nature of the relationship between the machines and ourselves."

Bangalter goes on to explain how Daft Punk's use of technology was meant to help reveal something human rather than be a simple unfettered embrace of it. “We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can," Bangalter explained. "We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology."

Recent advancements in A.I. have prompted concerns in Bangalter which "go beyond its use in music creation," and have helped confirm that his decision to leave Daft Punk behind was the right one. "As much as I love this character," he said, "the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot."

This Friday, Bangalter will release Mythologies, a solo album and orchestral score performed by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and written for a ballet of the same name. The 10th-anniversary reissue of the final Daft Punk album Random Access Memories will be released in May.