"It's been much too long, I feel it coming on..."

If you have read my blog in the past, you might have noticed that I am somewhat of a Daft Punk fan, and thus it may not come as a surprise to you that I'm all of a sudden 'blogging' again after a looong break. (A break caused apathy. Apathy and studies. They often go hand in hand. And I am sorry, for you must have missed me so! No?)

This timely reboot of humanafterall.net coincides with the much-longed for return of Daft Punk. The news, rumours, leaks, and teasers have offered that missing spark to my motivation, and these last few days in particular have turned that spark into a roaring fire.

As is often the case with the hyperactive rumour-factory of the internet, there will be many misleading and exaggerated whispers (or rather hysterical shoutings). But some surprising facts have been revealed.

1) The entire album will premiered in front of a 4000 strong crowd at an agricultural fair in Wee Waa, Australia, on the 17th of May (The official album release is on the 21st of May.). This fact is so bizarre, funny, and wonderful that I have no further comment. Sometimes art does not necessitate opinion. Good on you, Wee Waa, you lucky bastards.

2) Tomorrow (April 20th), Daft Punk will premiere their new single "Get Lucky", featuring legendary producers and artists Nile Rodgers and Pharrell Williams, on the French radio channel Fun Radio. In the meantime, I suggest you enjoy this teaser that fans all over the world have been going crazy over for a couple of days now, ever since it was sprung on an unknowing Coachella audience, with the Daft Punk guys and Pharrell Williams looking on in the background. The new single is going to be a summer hit by the sounds of it!

3) The rumour of Daft Punk's presence at Coachella, immediately led to rumours about Daft Punk making another surprise appearance with their French brethren in Phoenix, who headlined yesterday's lineup. I bet the live youtube stream from Coachella has never been so crowded as during their gig. I watched it live myself this morning:
Phoenix plays a brilliant and energetic set, the crowd is wild with both excitement from the concert but also with anticipation of the rumours...
The music ends and the lights go out on stage...
The crowd starts screaming, most likely from the assumption that THIS IS IT.
And then, who appears on stage? R. fucking Kelly... That's right. R. Kelly joins Phoenix on stage with a rendition of "Ignition" combined with "1901". The mixture of surprise, shock, disappointment, disbelief, and general what-the-fuck'ness can best be described by R. Kelly himself

Ah well, maybe it was unfair of everyone to expect such a thing from Phoenix. Are Phoneix never going to be able to play another show after the Madison Square Garden gigs in 2010 without people screaming from Daft Punk? I actually think it was rather cool, in that unexpected way, that they invited R. Kelly on stage. Maybe they did it as a joke? Maybe they were completely genuine? Either way, it was an amazing concert.

And no matter how you look at it, Daft Punk are achieving amazing and mind-blowing things by simply not doing much. A simple teaser here and there and the rumour mill will do the rest to create the craze and hype around them, thus strengthening the concept and idea of Daft Punk as anonymous, artistic, powerful robotic deities, rulers and lifters of dance music. I may be a sycophant, but I think you have all reason  to believe that this album will be something big.