Although the French electronica band Daft Punk finally split in February after 28 years together, the duo’s music—like Mozart’s symphonies—will continue to live on as they’re remixed and reimagined. One such reimagining came recently, when YouTuber and electronics hobbyist, Franzoli Electronics, put out a cover of the band’s famous song, “Around the World,” played on Tesla coils. And the cover is shockingly good.
Laughing Squid picked up on Franzoli’s Tesla-tastic version of “Around the World,” which the science and music lover recently posted to his YouTube channel. Franzoli has made numerous other Tesla coil covers before, including one of “Africa” by Toto. (Needless to say, like “Around the World,” “Africa” sounds great on Franzoli’s coils.)
Franzoli explains in the video’s description that it’s the Tesla coils’ sparks that are producing the song’s sounds. The hobbyist adds that the sparks are “literally playing the music” due to his programming them with different phase, pulse, width, and firing frequencies; with each type of spark representing a different zapping note. Which means this Tesla-coil sound system uses zero speakers.
As for the results? Franzoli’s “Around the World” sounds more zappy than the original, but it’s still just as pleasing to the ear. For folks who love “robot” music, anyway. The sounds the coils produce are almost like those a kazoo would, but with a much wider range of sounds. The disparate notes are certainly able to harmonize well, anyway, and combine for one heck of an outro.
There are also plenty of other musicians who’ve paid homage to Daft Punk in the past, of course. Somebody mashed up Daft Punk with Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas Is You” last year, for example. And what an orchestra pit can do with “Harder, Better, Faster Stronger” will put you in the mood to do the robot. Although like Franzoli in this video, anybody doing the robo-dance near Tesla coils will definitely want to be in a Faraday cage.