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From The Daily Swarm:

Sometimes, the collective “we” forgets just how avant-garde Daft Punk has been throughout its uncanny career arc. In the wake of the ubiquity of the hit single “Get Lucky” and the mass hysteria preceding the official release of accompanying album Random Access Memories early next week, it’s easy to overlook the challenging elements and influences the duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo have incorporated into Daft Punk’s shiny metallic pop-art appeal. At the same time, it’s amazing how remarkably consistent the vision of the maverick electronic group has proven – how it’s been expanded upon and elaborated as it morphs into different incarnations.

This is nowhere more clear in what hindsight is proving to be (in my not-so-humble opinion) the best Daft Punk interview ever published. Speaking to the late, great Stop Smiling magazine in 2008 for a cover feature Q&A centered around the U.S. release of Daft Punk’s first feature film, the wildly experimental road movie Electroma, the individual members of Daft Punk opened up like never before. (It may be, in fact, the most loquacious de Homem-Christo has ever been to a journalist.) In addition to going deep into the roots of their obsessive cinephilia, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo painted a picture of the influe...

Via NME:

The band’s new album 'Random Access Memories’ is expected to beat the record currently held by 1997’s 'Be Here Now’, with bookies Paddy Power cutting the odds dramatically on the French duo’s chances, according to Music Week. 'Be Here Now’ sold 650,000 in its first week of sales, but 'Random Access Memories’ has already scored the highest number of pre-sales for any dance album ever on Amazon. Paddy Power are giving 4/5 odds on the record outselling Oasis. The album is released tomorrow (May 17).

The LP has 7/1 odds of becoming the best-selling album in UK chart history by 2015.

Via Hip Hop DX:

Pusha T and Newark, New Jersey

Via Exclaim:

Sofia Coppola has some amassed some stellar musical ties over the years, recruiting Kevin Shields to write songs for 2003’s Lost in Translation and tapping her husband Thomas Mars’ band Phoenix for Somewhere. Now, she’s recruited a similarly impressive lineup of musicians for her upcoming flick, The Bling Ring.

The soundtrack is due out on June 11 through Def Jam, and it will include a heap of tunes from well-known artists like Kanye West, Frank Ocean (featuring Earl Sweatshirt), M.I.A., Sleigh Bells, Rick Ross (featuring Lil Wayne), Phoenix, Can, deadmau5, and Azealia Banks. Nearly all of the material on the soundtrack has already been released, however, and the tracklist includes some extremely famous songs (Kanye’s “Power” and “All of the Lights,” and M.I.A.'s “Bad Girls,” for example).

Via Exclaim:

Sofia Coppola has some amassed some stellar musical ties over the years, recruiting Kevin Shields to write songs for 2003’s Lost in Translation and tapping her husband Thomas Mars’ band Phoenix for Somewhere. Now, she’s recruited a similarly impressive lineup of musicians for her upcoming flick, The Bling Ring.

The soundtrack is due out on June 11 through Def Jam, and it will include a heap of tunes from well-known artists like Kanye West, Frank Ocean (featuring Earl Sweatshirt), M.I.A., Sleigh Bells, Rick Ross (featuring Lil Wayne), Phoenix, Can, deadmau5, and Azealia Banks. Nearly all of the material on the soundtrack has already been released, however, and the tracklist includes some extremely famous songs (Kanye’s “Power” and “All of the Lights,” and M.I.A.'s “Bad Girls,” for example).

Via Pitchfork:

The next chapter in the politically active part of Thom Yorke’s career is a score for a documentary on tax avoidance, The Telegraph reports. The UK Gold, a feature-length film set to premiere in London on June 25, chronicles the history of tax avoidance in Britain. Yorke teamed up with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja and Elbow’s Guy Garvey for the music for the film.

Written and directed by Mark Donne and narrated by Dominic West (who played McNulty on “The Wire”), the film focuses on the “dramatic battle of a vicar from a small parish in the London Borough of Hackney as goes head to head with an ancient and mighty heavyweight, revealing its central status as the tax-haven nerve centre of the world.”

A Memphis woman has come out claiming that rapper Tim Dog faked his own death to avoid repaying fraud victims. Dog was convicted for fraud, after meeting women on dating sites then scamming them out of money. The woman make the allegations, Esther Pilgrim, was one of his victims.

Tim Dog, who was known best for the song “Fuck Compton”, was busted in 2011 for a financial scheme in which he defrauded women he met on online dating sites. Pilgrim was one of the victims, and a court ordered Blair to pay her back, at a rate of $100 per month, Pilgrim told WREG.

When Pilgrim learned of Tim Dog’s death in February, the repayments stopped. According to WREG, Pilgrim began looking into his death. “There was nothing of what you would normally find. What city? Who found him? There was nothing with any type of concrete details,” she said. She sent a friend to Atlanta, who reportedly couldn’t find a death record for Blair. An investigator sent by WREG allegedly tracked down an address for Blair in Atlanta that was “active” as of April, but there is no word on what, exactly, “active” means.

Dog was ordered to pay Pilgrim $19,000.

By this point, hip hop fans are pretty used to hearing about rappers pushing release dates back. J. Cole has taken a page from Kid Cudi’s book, instead, and has bumped up the release date of Born Sinner, his sophomore full length. Via Hollywood Reporter:

Jay-Z’s protege J. Cole has bumped up the release of his sophomore album, Born Sinner, to June 18 — one week earlier than announced, a source close to the rapper tells The Hollywood Reporter.

“I wanted to come out earlier, but I kept hitting these creative zones where I couldn’t finish,” Cole said to THR in November. “Cause I kept making more and more and more. It