#semi drumless
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A (Weird) Look Into Drumless Albums: Daft Punk & DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ
2023: In celebration of the 10th anniversary since the release of Daft Punk's 2013 'Random Access Memories', the duo (or whoever manages them now they've broken up) emerged with - alongside an anniversary edition - perhaps one of the strangest release decisions in dance music... ever? : an entirely drumless version of their beloved album, nary a kick nor snare in sight.
now, I should mention that RAM is not my favourite daft punk album, but credit where credit is due, you can't deny get lucky and lose yourself to dance.
nonetheless this version of the album spans between the actually quite alright (in the case of The Game of Love); something frustratingly lacking - Giorgio by Moroder without drums totally misses the mark and is... 9 minutes long; and the secret third thing in lose yourself to dance that is sorta what this semi-structured ramble is about:
Lose Yourself To Dance (Drumless Edition) is... agonising...ly.. good??? - like... alarmingly so
one thing daft punk had always excelled at (in my eyes) is creating a sound that makes you BEG for some musical satisfaction - Crescendolls on discovery is the clearest example - and playing that for the entire song.
What Lose Yourself gains without drums is this overwhelming internal feeling that at any point the drums are going to finally kick in and give that satisfaction that the track is building up to. Im being serious, go listen to it, its 6 minutes of the tensest build up with absolutely zero release, its brilliant - I haven't seen anything else quite like it and I strangely love it. It totally peels back the idea of what dance music needs and is still so excellently danceable in its own way.
So, the reason I bring this up is because DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ's 'Destiny (Drumless Edition)' does this for almost all of its entire, majestic 3 hours and 56 minute runtime. And of course this album was probably just a joke about Daft Punk's release, and a continued meme about how the artist dropped a 4 hour album fairly casually - but like Lose Yourself To Dance, its really surprisingly quite good.
now, before you rush into it (I know you're TOTALLY BEGGING to, and have already put aside 4 precious hours to dedicate to the album.) I feel that the feeling im talking about here only makes sense when you know a bit of DJ Sabrina's other stuff: its (usually) some absolutely excellent sampling work with a massive side chained 4 on the floor that slides in halfway through. It's simple, but executed brilliantly. Check out all 7 minutes of 'Next To Me', and you'll get the vibe.
I'm not saying this version is better than the original... absolutely not, and same goes for Lose Yourself To Dance. But there really is something here when it stretches out for 4 hours. I think I may be one of the very few people who have actually sat through a large chunk of the album, but that feeling of anticipation turns from unease into a trancelike... calm?
Destiny Drumless is... like... incredible study music, especially with Sabrina's heavily layered style, the samples begin to wash over you without any pause (the album has basically zero dead air), and it becomes wonderfully tranquil to just... sit... and absorb what you can of the glossy synths and gentle pads as they pass you by.
While RAM Drumless is, really not great save for a few tracks and DJ Sabrina is fairly underground... I do sincerely hope that the joke about it catches on, because drumless dance is... utterly bizarre, but can really very much work with the right artist, and that weird feeling you get while listening is something im not sure exists anywhere else in music right now.
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