Validity Emphazed? Daft Punk.

So. Electro-house heavyweights Daft Punk are due to return with a newfangled full-length in no way affiliated with Disney some time next year (slated to be next Spring, if unanticipated collaborator Chilly Gonzales is to be believed) and whilst cards, other assorted tricks, and MP3s have been kept as closely guarded as the robot rockers' retinas once installed within those all-flashing oversized braincases of theirs, we may here have a preliminary glimpse into that which is yet to come. First Q therefore: is Emphazed actually a Daft Punk track? Though I'm in no way qualified to comment with much veracity, I'd opt for a noncommittal could well be. Immaculately pieced together, it blips, builds and breaks in all the right sorts of places; is constructed of faintly neoclassical arpeggios, as is much of their illustrious back catalogue; and sounds far too polished to merely be the half-baked work of some perpetually stoned prétendant parisien. In my humble opinion. Chic mainstay Nile Rodgers is also purportedly working on the project and although his involvement with whatever this may be feels oracular at best, it's one to which everybody shall surely dance if le duo do indeed thaw out from the cryongenics and compute a couple shows this coming summer...

DOWNLOAD: Daft Punk (?), Emphazed.

Dots & Dashes assume no responsibility for any disappointments incurred if Emphazed transpires to be just another Kavinsky track.

Artful Droners. Tim Hecker & Daniel Loptain, Instrumental Tourist.

If you're not the sort to more or less reside in the archives of the Quietus, nor rejoice in the glorious secular monstrosities of Demdike Stare, Fennesz, et al. then this ungodly drone matrimony between Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin (or Oneohtrix Point Never to those less well versed – myself included) might sound all too atonal and out there. Otherwise, consider this an exultant amble down the eternal aisles of atheism, soundtracked by devastating squalls charted somewhere or other between disquietude and a more general discordance.

Live: Cheesy Sleaze. Mac DeMarco, Birthdays.

Ah Razorlight! What sagacious pearls you did once poop: "Don't go back to Dalston/ Don't go up the junction", Johnny Borrell then crooned with the limpness of shed fish skin. Although since gentrified, Dalston has arguably become increasingly horrifying since such words were first uttered back in '04. It's yet more abhorrent than the quartet's entirely inessential eponymous sophomore; more obnoxious than that forgotten third full-length, even. Unlike J-Bo though, Mac DeMarco is no such objectionable gent.

Live: Touchdown. Flying Lotus, The Troxy.

Y'all know when Flying Lotus drops into town: the airs become perfumed with exquisite illicits, and commensurately delectable, languid beats ooze from every open portal. Whether that's an art deco Stepney theatre way down into the 400s of Commercial Road or Rough Trade, Steven Ellison last week loomed at large over east London. He was, for a few all too fleeting days, unofficially appointed the Guv'nor of Tower Hamlets. And for some time, the place was all the better for it.