Cole Cuchna

These human-centered songs stand in deliberate contrast to the tracks built around robotic voices.

The Game of Love and Within were both deeply mournful songs centered on a robot confronting its inability to fully experience human emotion and sensation.

Even the melancholy Instant Crush filters Julian Casablanca's voice through digital processing, partially obscuring his humanity beneath technology.

And that's what makes What Happens Later in Lose Yourself to Dance so striking for anyone following this thread.

Because suddenly the robots enter the song, not during the anxious descending verses, but during the euphoric refrain itself, joining Pharrell in the human act of dance and performing a melody that continually ascends.

For the first time on the album, the robots sound genuinely alive.

They sound free.

Like they're having fun.

But what caused this sudden shift?

Did they simply follow Pharrell's advice and lose themselves to dance?

Or is something else happening here?

To find the answer, we have to turn to the start of the album's next track, Touch.

Touch begins with abstract, atmospheric production, where we hear the mutated, heavily affected voice of Paul Williams say, Touch, I remember Touch.

Now, there's a tremendous amount of significance layered into this moment.

We can start with the man behind the voice, Paul Williams, the legendary songwriter, composer, and actor known for penning classics like Rainbow Connection and We've Only Just Begun.

as well as starring in films throughout the 1970s.

If you recall all the way back to the first episode this season, I began our discussion of Thomas and Guimond's origin story talking about their love of film.

And there was one movie they loved more than any other, one they claimed to have watched more than 20 times together.

That film was Phantom of the Paradise, and its star was Paul Williams.

From its mass phantom figure surrounded by synthesizers to its central allegory about exploitation within the music industry, Tomas and Guimond once described Phantom of the Paradise as the foundation of their entire artistic identity.