A cassette that was moldy and torn when its owner finally took it out of storage has yielded a one-of-a-kind Daft Punk mix recorded by the legendary electronic music duo in February 1997.Ralph Lawson, a DJ and label founder, said he found the tape in 2024 while going through his collection.
Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had recorded the mix for Trans Europe Express, a show Lawson hosted at the time on a London station that began as Kiss FM and later became Galaxy FM.The program invited guests to contribute mixes and Daft Punk’s arrived in the mail just weeks after they released their debut album, Homework, according to Lawson.
He said the tape was in bad shape and he feared a restoration attempt could destroy it, but ultimately teamed up with a studio in Bristol, which repaired the damage and returned it to him only recently.What survived is a snapshot of the robots at a moment when their seminal French house sound was still in its infancy.
The tracklist includes Jack Da Ripper’s ‘Beautification Of House,’ Romanthony’s ‘Everybody Dancing’ and House Of Jazz’s ‘Lose My Mind,’ among other unearthed classics.The mix also includes ‘WDPK 83.7 FM,’ Daft Punk’s fictional radio station intro that framed Homework as a broadcast from the future of dance music.
You can listen to the full mix below via SoundCloud....