Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter contributes to Phoenix's new album, 'Alpha Zulu'

Phoenix have revealed that they worked with Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter while producing their latest album, ‘Alpha Zulu’.

In an interview with Stereogum, the band’s frontman, Thomas Mars, said Bangalter helped to fill the void in the studio that had been left by the passing of French artist Philippe Zdar of Cassius, who died following an accidental fall in Paris in 2019 and worked on several of the band’s past albums.

“The mixer played an important part on this one,” Mars said in the interview.”And Thomas [Bangalter] from Daft Punk came a few times to help us out, just to play the role of Philippe, who was this charismatic force that knew who we were and could give us advice because he knows where we want to go, he knows where we come from, he’s a friend.

“Thomas played a little bit of the same role. He knows the potential of a song; he knows what a demo could sound like. He would help us choose a little bit.”

Bangalter has worked with the band a number of times in the past, with his first contribution to their work coming on 2000 track ‘Embuscade’, on which he played synths. He and fellow Daft Punk member Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were also part of a band together with Phoenix guitarist Laurent Brancowitz, called Darlin’, for a short period in the early ’90s.

‘Alpha Zulu’, which is out tomorrow (Friday, 4th November), marks Phoenix’s first studio album since 2017’s ‘Ti Amo’. Watch a video for the new album’s title cut below.

Last year, Bangalter revealed his first project since the split of Daft Punk in early 2021, the score for a ballet titled ‘Mythologies’. He was also spotted in the background of a TikTok post shared by Lil Nas X from a recording studio back in June of this year.