Droids - Star Peace

Before Air and Daft Punk, we had…

Droids dressed as robots for a TV appearance promoting their first single (Do You Have) The Force two decades before Daft Punk released their debut album Homework. You can’t help but feel, then, at least one of the two très chic French acts of the 90s were watching.

Sadly, that’s all we really learn from the hideously slight sleevenotes to this reissue of Droids’ sole album, originally released in 1978. Maybe Repressed were trying to maintain an air of mystique, but the Galaxy High School disco music Star Peace has to offer is so fascinating, the lack of info is infuriating. …The Force seriously pounds along like anything Daft Punk turned out in their heyday, but there are reflective moments, such as Tchoung Fou, the likes of which you’d get on Trunk’s more space age recordings. Droids, it seems, weren’t programmed to do just one thing. Second single Be Happy comes along like spy flick electronica (think Devo’s Secret Agent Man fully synthed-out), while the closing eight-and-a-half- minute Renaissance De L’Amour is a tour de force of cinematic synthscapes, bleeps, bloops and world rhythms, which comes to an uneasy landing with a baby crying. This is light years ahead of its time.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Repressed | REPEAT 5

Reviewed by Jason Draper
<< Back to Issue 351

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