Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter is Collaborating with French Rapper OrelSan

A little over a day after Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk made a celebrated return to the stage, OrelSan has shared that they’re releasing a track together.

Daft Punk fans the world over were delighted to see former member Thomas Bangalter make a surprise appearance behind the decks in Paris on Saturday night. Now, his fellow Frenchman OrelSan has announced that his upcoming album, La Fuite en Avant (“the flight forward” in English), will include a collaboration between both artists.

OrelSan (real name Aurélien Cotentin) shared the news on Monday, setting a November 7 release date for the 17-song effort. No title is currently available for his and Bangalter’s track together, although Cotentin has called it “the feat of my dreams” and said that it fuses rap with electronic music. Artists like Fifty Fifty, Yamê, SDM, and Lilas have also been named as collaborators.

La Fuite en Avant is not the first time Bangalter has dabbled in hip-hop. He worked with the French group 113 in the early 2000s, and he’s co-written and co-produced for the likes of Kanye West and Lil Nas X over the course of his solo career.

In June 2024, Bangalter also released the album CHIROPTERA MATIERE PREMIERE, the soundtrack for a Paris Opera dance project. Cotentin dabbles in multimedia arts himself, featuring in a film called Yoroi set for theatrical release tomorrow, October 29, and which is said to share some common themes with his upcoming album.

While there’s still no news of a Daft Punk comeback, fans of Thomas Bangalter’s light touch as a musician can continue to find his sonic fingerprint on works throughout the cultural zeitgeist.

OrelSan has yet to share pre-order info for La Fuite en Avant ahead of the album’s November 7 release. Connect with him on social media to get updates as they become available.