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"Contact" is the thirteenth and final track from the album Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. Its length is 6:23. It is the only song on the album that has any samples in it. It sampled "We Ride Tonight" by The Sherbs, and a NASA Astronaut recording.

An early version can be heard in the Together and Cassius Live @ Paradiso set in 2002.

Production[]

"Contact" was produced with DJ Falcon, who had previously worked with Thomas Bangalter as a duo called Together. Falcon is also a Roulé labelmate with Bangalter, the founder of Roulé. "Contact" begins with a sample of "We Ride Tonight" by The Sherbs.[1] From that point, the track is said by Q Magazine to be composed of orchestral and synthesizer riffs,[2] progressive layers and concludes with what Louis Lepron of Kombini called a "sharp guitar chord".[3] The modular synthesizer on the track was performed by Daft Punk and Falcon, while bass and drums were performed by James Genus and Omar Hakim, respectively.[1]

Falcon noted that when he worked on "Contact" with the duo in Paris, they felt that it needed something akin to a countdown. NASA was eventually contacted, and they gladly gave Daft Punk access to all of their mission recordings to sample. The duo and Falcon settled on an excerpt where someone was called "Bob", as that was Falcon's skating nickname when he was first introduced to Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.[4][5] The NASA sample features a recording of Eugene Cernan from the Apollo 17 mission, in which he observes a flashing object from a window of his capsule.[6][2] It was later surmised that the particle was a discarded rocket stage.[7] Bangalter emphasized the choice of Cernan, the last man to leave the surface of the moon on the final Apollo mission, being used to end the album.[8] Cernan passed away in 2017.

Falcon recalled that upon playback of the completed "Contact", the studio speakers had blown out as a result of the sounds from the end of the track. He likened the effect to the end of a rock concert where guitars are thrown to the floor. NME interpreted the sound as "not unlike a huge pyramid blasting off into space", a reference to the stage visuals of Daft Punk's Alive 2006 / Alive 2007 tour.[9]

Lyrics[]

(While the song is an instrumental, it has a spoken intro.)

Hey Bob, I'm looking at what Jack was talking about and it's definitely not a particle that's nearby. It is a bright object and it's obviously rotating because it's flashing, it's way out in the distance, certainly rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come around almost on time. As we look back at the earth it's up at about 11 o'clock, about maybe ten or twelve diameters. I don't know whether that does you any good, but there's something out there.

Personnel[]

Personnel adapted from album's liner notes.[1]

  • Daft Punk – modular synthesizer
  • DJ Falcon – modular synthesizer
  • James Genus – bass
  • Omar Hakim – drums

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Random Access Memories (liner notes). Daft Punk. Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. 2013.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Harrison, Andrew (June 2013). "Total Recall". Q Magazine (323): 88–89. 
  3. Lepron, Louis (24 April 2013). Album Review: Daft Punk – Random Access Memories. Konbini.com. Retrieved on 25 April 2013.
  4. Lachman, Ed (7 May 2013). Daft Punk | Random Access Memories | The Collaborators, Episode 7: DJ Falcon. thecreatorsproject.vice.com. YouTube. Retrieved on 7 May 2013.
  5. Cubarrubia, RJ (10 May 2013). Paul Williams, DJ Falcon Describe Working With Daft Punk (YouTube video). Rolling Stone. Wenner Media. Retrieved on 11 May 2013.
  6. Ghosn, Joseph, and Wicker, Olivier (18 April 2013). Daft Punk Revient Avec Random Access Memories (French). Obsession. Retrieved on 18 April 2013. “Exclu: Les morceaux de Random Access Memories commentés par Daft Punk.”
  7. O'Callaghan, Jonathan (22 May 2013). Which astronaut is speaking at the start of Daft Punk’s new song Contact, and what is he talking about?. spaceanswers.com. Retrieved on 25 May 2013.
  8. Baron, Zach (May 2013). "Daft Punk Is (Finally!) Playing at Our House". GQ 83 (5): 76–82. http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201305/daft-punk-random-access-memories-profile-gq-may-2013. 
  9. Daft Punk: "We don’t have egos, we have superpowers". NME. Retrieved on August 9, 2015.
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