Daft Punk - Interstella 5555

Daft Punk - Interstella 5555 - Although I own the DVD, this feature was played at a recent film festival in my home city of Brisbane, Australia, and I was lucky enough to go and watch it.

Discovery is an excellent album, and Leiji Matsumoto's Interstella is the perfect complement. His animation is classic Manga: insanely cute, very futuristic and innocently utopian.

The whole package is free of all of the banalities, fake aggression and arrogance of today's hip-hip and rock music. It is pure retro-futuristic pop culture, drawn as much from 70's and early 80s disco and sci-fi as it is from modern electronica.

It isn't flawless - Leiji does struggle at times to fit the logical (if childishly simplistic) story with the occasional sudden stylistic changes in the music. For example, the beautiful electro-ballad "Veridis Quo" is the setting for an emotional climax as the alien band fight it out with their evil human captor and his henchmen.

The five minute piece fades out with a calm, happy/sad mood well set it in, but because the next tune on Discovery is the silly 8-bit hip-hop block-party jam "Short Circuit", so the next scene in the movie must follow.

The sharp change in feel is fine on the album, but ends up pretty damn inappropriate in the movie.

Still, in concept, this original and a project of this quality, it's no big deal - I love it!