Dance-music legend Moroder has 'Deja Vu'

NEW YORK -- When you've been called the father of disco and the godfather of electronic dance music, it's easy to rest on your laurels. And for a while, that's pretty much what Giorgio Moroder did.

Inescapable in the late '70s and '80s through the hits he crafted for Donna Summer and other pop stars, and for his work on film soundtracks such as Flashdance and American Gigolo, the producer/songwriter/DJ/performer maintained a lower profile in the following decades. Then a few years ago, Moroder recalls, "This little group called Daft Punk asked me if I wanted to collaborate on one song on their album."

The result, a track called Giorgio by Moroder, wound up on the French duo's Random Access Memories, which earned the 2013 Grammy Award for Album of the Year -- an honor that Moroder shared. (The Grammy was his fourth.)

"It was a hit," says Moroder, 75, in typically understated fashion. "And with that, I was back in the music business."

Now Moroder is releasing his own studio album, the first in three decades. Out Tuesday , Déjà Vu features guest vocals by latter-day divas from Kylie Minogue to Britney Spears to Charli XCX. Minogue, an old friend, appears on Right Here, Right Now, first unveiled in January; Sia is featured on Déjà Vu, which premiered as a single in April.

Male singers Mikky Ekko and Matthew Koma also pop up on the album. But chatting in his record company offices, Moroder expresses a particular fondness for women's voices -- especially on contemporary recordings.

"I think the female singers today are incredible," he says. "And the quality of the recordings is really good." He's similarly pleased with the progress of dance music on radio: "Five years ago, you didn't hear EDM, or you heard very little of it" on Top 40 stations. "Now I'll be in Los Angeles listening to KISS-FM, and half the songs are dance songs."

If you've ever wondered, Moroder doesn't tend to express his appreciation by dancing along. "My wife likes to, but I don't," he says. "She dances and I watch."

A native of Italy, Moroder has sustained an international profile throughout his career. His many film-score credits include the late Leni Riefenstahl's 2002 marine documentary Impressionen unter Wasser. Moroder notes that Riefenstahl, infamous for directing the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, "was 98 when she called me, very nice, and (Impressionen) was a beautiful movie. A lot of people do bad things, but I liked her as an artist."

More recently, Moroder has DJed at various festivals. Upcoming dates will take him to Switzerland and Belgium, in July, and this year's Pop Montreal in September. "Being a DJ kind of makes you feel young," he observes. "Playing for 30,0000 young people" -- many of whom know his golden oldies, he points out. "Kids who were not even born when that music came out. Imagine that."

Moroder also keeps busy remixing material, his own and other artists'. "Recording is the easy part," he says. "Then you have to do press, TV, other work."

But "I'm not complaining," he adds quickly. "To be working after all these years is quite interesting. And look at someone like Tony Bennett, who's almost 89. I still have a lot of years, I think."