Daft Punk’s lost February 1997 radio mix is online after Ralph Lawson restored the tape
The duo sent the guest mix to Lawson’s Trans Europe Express show on KISS FM 105 in Yorkshire in the Homework era. It sat in a box for nearly 30 years.
A Daft Punk DJ mix from February 1997 is now online for the first time. Ralph Lawson, the founder of 20/20 Vision, uploaded it to SoundCloud this week. The duo had sent it to him as a guest mix for his show Trans Europe Express on KISS FM 105, Lawson writes. The station was based in Leeds, Yorkshire.
A tape in a box for nearly 30 years
In his SoundCloud notes, Lawson says Daft Punk sent the mix “as promo for their first album Homework”. He also writes that “it’s quite possible it was sent to other stations.” The mix was “sent on DAT (Digital Audio Tape)”, Lawson writes. DJ Mag and Mixmag describe it as a cassette.
Lawson found it in 2024 while searching his DAT archive, Mixmag reports. By then, the tape had developed mould. “The tape was broken and it’s taken me all this time to get it sorted out,” he says in an Instagram video, as quoted by Mixmag. Lawson describes it as “mouldy and ripped”. So he sent it to Great Bear, a digitising studio in Bristol, for restoration, DJ Mag reports.
Afterward, he added “just a small amount of limiting” to bring it up to modern levels. However, he left out compression on purpose. In his words, Daft Punk “were famous for their expert use of side chain compression”.
Not the Essential Mix
Lawson’s main worry was a copy. “I was so nervous about it, because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t their [BBC Radio 1] Essential Mix, which came out in March ’97,” he says in the video, as quoted by Mixmag. After the restoration, he played the tape on camera and confirmed it was an unheard set, DJ Mag notes.
What’s in the Daft Punk mix
According to DJ Mag, the mix features Basement Jaxx, Armand Van Helden, I:Cube and Boris Dlugosch. It also includes Daft Punk tracks and solo tracks by Thomas Bangalter. In addition, EDM.com lists Jack Da Ripper’s “Beautification Of House”, Romanthony’s “Everybody Dancing” and House Of Jazz’s “Lose My Mind”. The mix also carries “WDPK 83.7 FM”, the radio-station intro from Homework, EDM.com notes.
Meanwhile, the Daft Punk catalog keeps finding new formats. Read BEZ’s story on Daft Punk and LEGO’s ALIVE 2007 pyramid set.
Sources: Ralph Lawson, “daft punk feb 97 dj mix”, SoundCloud, upload dated Oct 28, 2026; Mixmag, Megan Townsend, Oct 30, 2026; DJ Mag, Oct 30, 2026; EDM.com, Oct 29, 2026; Ralph Lawson on Instagram, Oct 21, 2026
Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, unmasked, at their gear in a club in the 1990s. Image: via DJ Mag
