Depending on what you think about Dolby Atmos spatial audio in the music domain, the news that Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories album has been remixed in the buzzword technology is bound to be exciting or at least intriguing.
Indeed, Daft Punk has announced a 10th anniversary edition of its five-time Grammy-winning album that features a brand new spatial Atmos mix alongside 35 minutes of unreleased music on nine tracks. This additional material includes demos, rare tracks and studio outtakes of the songs that won the electronic duo the 2014 Grammy album of the year. full track list here (opens in new tab).
The anniversary album will be available May 12 in triple-LP, double-CD, download and streaming formats, the latter of which will host the spatial audio version on, presumably, the three services that support Dolby Atmos – Tidal, Amazon Music and Apple Music.
This is the first time the iconic album will be released in a spatial format, and it will undoubtedly be one of the biggest releases for the technology to date. Firstly, we hope it emerges as one of the ‘good ones’, having recently expressed our doubts about the inconsistent quality of releases to date. Because when done right, it can really add a positive sense of power and atmosphere to a song’s soundscape – something we imagine would work especially well for Random Access Memories given its spacey synth-laden electronics. The potential is definitely there.
While Dolby Atmos surround sound for movie and TV soundtrack applications has been heralded as a success, reception in the music domain has been more marmite. For example, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich recently called Dolby Atmos music “fundamentally not good”. That said, it’s widely defended out there – evident not only in the increasing number of spatial mixes being released on services, but also in the push tech giants like Apple that are giving it.
MORE:
11 of the best spatial audio tracks in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music
Dolby Atmos music: everything you need to know about spatial audio technology
Sonos Era 300, Era 100: everything you need to know about Sonos’ (rumored) spatial audio speakers
Best Dolby Atmos soundbars 2023: budget to premium home theater sound
Spatial Audio from Apple is a music revolution, but try it without the headphones