"Contact" was produced with DJ Falcon, who had previously worked with Thomas Bangalter as a duo called Together. Falcon is also a Roulé labelmate with Bangalter, the founder of Roulé. "Contact" begins with a sample of "We Ride Tonight" by The Sherbs.[1] The sample was previously used by Bangalter and Falcon as part of a DJ set by Together in 2002. The set also featured Cassius.[2] Daryl Braithwaite of The Sherbs had been informed of the sampling in "Contact" before the Daft Punk song was released. He also specified that he, Tony Mitchell and Garth Porter of The Sherbs would be credited as co-writers of "Contact" because of the sample, and thus would receive royalties.[3] In addition to the sampling, "Contact" is said by Q Magazine to be composed of orchestral and synthesizer riffs,[4] progressive layers and concludes with what Louis Lepron of Konbini called a "sharp guitar chord".[5] The modular synthesizer on the track was performed by Daft Punk and Falcon, while bass and drums were performed by James Genus and Omar Hakim, respectively.[1]
Falcon noted that when he worked on "Contact" with Daft Punk in Paris, they felt that it needed something akin to a countdown. NASA was eventually contacted, and they gladly gave the duo access to all of their mission recordings to sample. Daft Punk and Falcon settled on an excerpt where someone was called "Bob", as that was Falcon's skating nickname when he was first introduced to Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.[6][7] The NASA sample features a recording of Eugene Cernan from the Apollo 17 mission, in which he observes a flashing object from a window of his capsule.[8][4] It was later surmised that the particle was a discarded rocket stage.[9] Bangalter emphasized the choice of Cernan, the last man to leave the surface of the Moon on the final Apollo mission, being used to end the album.[10]
Falcon recalled that upon playback of the completed "Contact", the studio speakers had blown out as a result of the sounds from the end of the track. He likened the effect to the end of a rock concert where guitars are thrown to the floor. NME interpreted the sound as "not unlike a huge pyramid blasting off into space", a reference to the stage visuals of Daft Punk's Alive 2006/2007 tour.[11]
^Ghosn, Joseph, and Wicker, Olivier (18 April 2013). "Daft Punk Revient Avec Random Access Memories". Obsession (in French). Retrieved 18 April 2013. Exclu: Les morceaux de Random Access Memories commentés par Daft Punk.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
