Cole Cuchna

This is what's known as a suspended chord.

Because it doesn't include a third to define its emotional character, there's an inherent tension built into it.

Our ears expect suspended chords to resolve, to tip one way or the other into major or minor.

So when they don't, we're left in a kind of harmonic limbo.

Literally suspended, hence the name.

That's why they're often described as having a floating quality.

This suspended, floating quality is exactly what makes the suspended chord at the start of Digital Love the perfect creative choice.

In a song narratively set inside a dream, this expansive suspended chord, played on a breathy, atmospheric synthesizer, feels almost weightless, as if giving sound to that liminal space between being awake and drifting into sleep.

Once we've crossed over into the dream world, we're met with the song's main sample loop, which at this point is a bit muffled as we get accustomed to our new environment, as if our vision is not yet fully in focus.

The loop is sampled from the intro of George Duke's 1979 track called I Love You More.

In terms of transformation, this is one of Daft Punk's most straightforward samples.

Unlike most of the sample breakdowns we've done this season, this one is not chopped up into fragments and reassembled.

It's not pitched up or down, nor is it sped up or slowed down.

Rather, they simply loop two measures on the intro verbatim, because sometimes that's all that's needed.

Of course, Daft Punk run the loop through their signature cocktail of effects.

In the introduction especially, the sample and suspended synth chord interact in a really striking way.

The sample starts off muffled, much of the high end is rolled off, and it gently swirls around thanks to an effect called a phaser.

But over time, the sample gradually gains clarity and brightness while the synth slowly fades away, creating a kind of crossfade, one element rising as the other recedes.

For me, the effect feels cinematic, continuing that sensation of floating, as if we're drifting through a shimmering portal into the dream itself.

It's the first where Tomas sings in a traditional pop style, and the first where his voice isn't processed beyond recognition.