Daft Punk’s “The Writing of Fragments” Reveals Recording Process

Daft Punk have offered a look behind their recording process with “The Writing of Fragments,” the first preview of the French duo’s 10th anniversary edition of Random Access Memories. Stream it below.

As the title suggests, “The Writing of Fragments” is a recording of Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter workshopping the Random Access Memories cut “Fragments of Time” with featured artist and co-producer Todd Edwards. It was captured on tape at the legendary Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles on February 29th, 2012.

Over the course of more than eight minutes, Bangalter and Edwards build out the track’s production and put together several lines from the second verse: “If I had my way, I would never leave/ Keep building these random memories/ Turning our days into melodies/ But since I can’t stay.”

Excited after the breakthrough, Bangalter says, “I think sometime the hard thing is just finding a melody. And now we have a melody for the second part of the verse that can just like write another thing.”

Random Access Memories (10th Anniversary Edition) is out on May 12th. It features eight other previously unreleased tracks, demos, sketches, and other rarities. Pre-orders are ongoing.

On April 7th, Bangalter will release an orchestral album called Mythologies, his first solo work since the group’s breakup in February 2021.