A previously unheard Daft Punk recording from the months surrounding the release of Homework has finally become available to listeners, after British DJ Ralph Lawson recovered and restored a tape that had spent decades in his personal archive.
The roughly hour-long DJ mix dates back to February 1997, when Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo sent it to Lawson for his radio show on Kiss FM. The recording was intended as a guest contribution while the French duo were promoting their debut album, released the previous month.
Lawson stumbled upon the recording in 2024 while going through his DAT archive in a storage unit. Its condition made recovery uncertain, as the tape had accumulated mould and was damaged. Lawson eventually turned to a Bristol-based restoration specialist to salvage its contents.
In an Instagram video documenting the process, Lawson explained that the restoration had taken considerable time. He also revealed that he had been worried about what the tape contained before hearing it. Daft Punk had already recorded a widely circulated Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1 in March 1997. Lawson feared his discovery might simply be another copy of that broadcast. Instead, listening to the recovered recording confirmed that it was a separate mix.
Lawson finally shared the recording on SoundCloud, giving listeners access to a piece of the duo's history that had remained out of circulation for almost 30 years. The group broke up some years ago, and have refused every offer to get back together since, even when Rockstar Games reprotedly approached them to score Grand Theft Auto VI with a ''near-unlimited budget''. Instead, the video game publisher turned to their friends and labelmates, Justice.
