There are only a handful of artists who truly changed music. Daft Punk is one of them. For anyone discovering electronic music in the late 90s, Homework was a revelation. It blurred the lines between house, techno, disco, and funk, while Spike Jonze’s “Da Funk” and Michel Gondry’s “Around the World” helped redefine what music videos could be. Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem Christo didn’t just make dance music. They changed its sound, its look, and its future.
That is what makes Thomas Bangalter’s appearance on CHANEL Connects so compelling. While CHANEL is one of France’s most iconic luxury brands, it has also become one of the country’s biggest patrons of the arts through museum partnerships, artist commissions, film, and initiatives like the CHANEL Next Prize. It is a fitting backdrop for a conversation with one of France’s most influential musicians.
Recorded live at Fondation Beyeler during Art Basel, Bangalter joins CHANEL’s President of Arts, Culture & Heritage, Yana Peel, for one of his most open conversations since Daft Punk’s split. Speaking with rare candour about his post-robot life, he reflects on moving beyond one of music’s most recognizable identities without losing the curiosity that defined it.
The conversation moves effortlessly between past and present. Bangalter discusses Warehouse Artifacts, his immersive collaboration with Julien Charrière and Rampa, before looking back to the Centre Pompidou library where he and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo first discovered Andy Warhol and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Add in an early rave and the blueprint for Daft Punk was born.
Fans will appreciate hearing Bangalter revisit Homework, Discovery, Random Access Memories, and the making of “Get Lucky” with Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder. Just as interesting is hearing where his work has taken him since, from Mythologies for the Bordeaux Opera to Mirage with Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa. He also recalls seeing Christo and Jeanne Claude’s wrapped Pont Neuf as a child, a memory that eventually came full circle through a collaboration with JR on the same bridge decades later.
CHANEL Connects is less about revisiting Daft Punk than understanding the creative instinct that made the duo so groundbreaking in the first place. The helmets may be gone, but Bangalter’s curiosity remains every bit as inspiring.