A collaboration between French dance maestros Daft Punk and one of Japan's leading animators, Interstella 5555 sets the album "Discovery" to an anime reworking of the plot of the S Club film Seeing Double, with an evil impresario (who looks more Ken Russell than Simon Cowell) trying to take over the world using popstars, the latest weapon of mass destruction. The result looks like a couple of episodes of Battle of the Planets rescored by a Shoreditch club promoter. That stylophone guitar riff in the middle of "Aerodynamic" is one of the most thrilling moments in all recent pop music, and if nothing in Matsumoto's visuals quite matches it, the music benefits from being played at Dolby stereo level in a darkened room. (You'd take listening to this over Thomas Bangalter's other score this year, the sonic assault he engineered for Gaspar Noe's Irreversible.) A useful reminder of what a strong album "Discovery" is: even the tracks unreleased as singles have somehow managed to lodge in the subconscious.
(October 2003)
A 4K remaster of Interstella 5555 plays in selected cinemas this Thursday for one night only.
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