"I liked the idea of writing music that was not amplified, that didn't require any electricity. It was just me and the scoring paper" - Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk, says in a BBC interview about his latest work, scoring music for a ballet. The project takes him back to his childhood - his mother and his aunt were both dancers, and his uncle a dance instructor, so when France's contemporary choreographer, Angelin Preljocaj, asked him to score a new ballet, he couldn't say no - "my mother passed about 20 years ago and going back to that world is linked to a certain time of my life. So it adds some nostalgia, but at the same time, it was a very new adventure." He also shares his thoughts on AI in the interview, as well as ending Daft Punk - "It was an exploration, I would say, starting with the machines and going away from them. I love technology as a tool [but] I'm somehow terrified of the nature of the relationship between the machines and ourselves. We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can. We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology. As much as I love this character, the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot."

Thomas Bangalter, known for being one half of Daft Punk, has announced his first full-length record since the duo split in 2021. The album titled ‘Mythologies’ was originally made for the ballet of the same name choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj and premiered at the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. Set for release April 7, the album includes 23 tracks which “embrace the history of orchestral ballet music”. The announcement states that over the last thirty years Bangalter has "explored the world of technology" with electronic music and sees him now exploring “humankind” in this album with him quoting ancient and modern myths.

Daniel Vangarde is an artist, writer, and producer behind an array of releases that range from the wildly obscure to the instantly familiar, like Ottawan's 'D.I.S.C.O'. Vangarde had retired from music years ago, relocating to a remote fishing village in northern Brazil, after losing interest in music. However, at the age of 75, he is having a career-spanning compilation released. Because Music was keen to release the compilation, partly due to the success of his son, Thomas Bangalter, until recently one half of Daft Punk. Alexis Petridis brings the exciting story.